Breathe the colour

March 10th

4 pm

The early weeks of March are the finest for a walk in the forest; the landscape is dry but not stifling, leaves of trees have been shed and, while some species are re-greening and getting their canopy back, brown is the colour.
Ananda, Vishnu, my son, and I are the only ones walking through the forest now, along thin paths covered with dried leaves that crackle and crunch under our feet. There is little doubt that we were preceded some hours ago by one or more elephants, but, for now, the air is still and silent.
….with a difference.

For, this silent forest speaks through a rich tapestry of colours and fragrance that you will never see or breathe later in the year.  The Flame of the Forest, Butea Monosperma, lights up a striking red patch amidst the brown, the young green and the dense bamboo.  The Taare tree - Terminalia bellerica - a handsome tall arboreal wonder, has a startling, light canopy of young wine-red leaves, matched in lustre by the flowers of the occasional Malabar Silk Cotton in the distant village in the valley.  Pongamias are all around, the forest floor carpeted with chlorophyll-rich, light-mauve fragrant flowers and a million bees working an ecological miracle in buzzing cacophony.  

Then we reach our destination, a rich outcrop of rock surrounded by dense forest of bright green and white, an oasis of noise in that otherwise somnolent silence. It is a sight I have seen every year, yet can never ever tire of, for it is, in a word, breath-taking (and I mean that in every way).

This is a forest of Shorea Roxburghii or Jalaari, and, boy, is that a pathetic, weak introduction! For about fifty weeks in a year, this is a non-descript tall tree, making no official statement whatsoever. After Shivaratri, it begins to bloom and then compensates for its prolonged reticence with a million tiny flowers in dense bunches, each a light cream and exuding the most heavenly, delicate fragrance ever. 

This is spectacular abundance, a cornucopia of sensory delight and the landscape ahead is clothed with it. We sit on a rock, under a mid-sized Jalaari tree – the rich, bright green leaves provide fitting shade – and the flowers drizzle down, falling on our shoulders, lap and all around. It is time to do nothing and Vish has this faraway look in his eyes and we lounge around. 

If you have to be, be a bee.

Eventually, we must leave these old friends behind (a parting is necessary before you can meet again, Richard Bach once said), so we saunter down the kaal-daari or footpath. 

A cactus in bloom greets us with its stunning (yet odd-smelling) flower-of-geometry. 

And nearby, next to a nulla that hosts a seasonal stream, is another treat - Firmiana Colorata or Kombare, a tall, spare tree with a rich, orange cast of flowers. Just flowers. Each is a stunner to see, touch, feel. There are but three of these trees in this forest, so they are hardly profuse, but, if you are a first-timer, it is a jaw-dropping sight of evolutionary adaptation to prevent self-pollination. 

Ananda picks a small branch for us and the bees are hovering around. To remind us that nothing in this orchestrated performance is for the gate-crasher, the traveller. 

Take nothing. Leave nothing behind. 

That is when you know that, in a forest, you are never alone.