Of Twins in the Spring

March-April 2023

This is the season of bloom.  Bangalore city has its share of flowers this season – my favourites the Beech Tree (Honge) and large-leaved Mahogany both bearing their own mild, yet distinct fragrance.  In our village though, it’s just the Honge,  taking over from where the Palash (Flame of the Forest) left off.  In a few sunny days, the Laburnum will follow, the profusion of bunches of delicate yellow flowers altering the landscape in a stunning explosion of contrast and colour.   But, for now, Honge rules.

These are the warm days to stroll around and do nothing in particular.  Six years ago, in 2017, at this time of year,  I stood outside the gates of the farm, admiring the carpet of flowers under the two beautiful Honge trees that stood on either side of the narrow path leading to Rama Reddy’s farm,  both heavy with fresh green leaves and a million light-purple flowers.  

And there were a thousand bees as well, buzzing over the gorgeous  flower-carpet and the fragrance was heady yet light; what a moment to be alive! These trees always looked like they were twins, about the same age and girth as each other.  I must have stood there for quite a while, for the sun dropped over the lake and, at length, I turned back and went home. That season, I did this as often as I could and was a better person for it. 

A few months later, one a fine morning in January 2018, I heard a drone, but ignored it for a while, being my usual absent-minded self.  Yet the sound of a crash got me moving – I ran up to the gate just in time to see the last chunk of the trunk of one of the twins being chopped up.  The area around was littered with leaves, broken branches and pieces of the trunk in what can only be described as a cacophony of destruction.  The  stump, jagged and white, stared up at the sky.

Rama Reddy stood there supervising the operation and, seeing the anger on my face, appeared sheepish, making no effort to look up, even as the men with the power-saw went about their job.  “But, why?” I asked him in exasperation, for this tree was outside the entrance to his farm and on a public path.  “I am getting Rs 2000,” he replied truthfully.  There was little one could do, but lament and curse, and make him promise that he’d leave the other twin alone.

So now there was one.

I remember that spring, five years ago, that season of the bloom.  On my visits, I often walked up to the lone twin and looked at the floor beneath the tree in dismay.  For it was bare with a few scattered buds, shorn of the carpet of flowers that I had watched entranced once. The fragrance and the bees were missing.  The tree, I could have sworn, was in mourning.  Or was it revenge as well?  

A few flowers adorned the low canopy, along with young, light-green leaves, and a vigorous breeze made them come alive, yet, like the loner by the path, I missed the twin deeply.  And I wondered if the bees had joined in the mourning by staying away.  I missed them too.

Since then, that tree has been a friend.  Perhaps I am good at commiseration or it just could be that I have a proclivity to vote for the underdog. Or it could be just that I park the car under it and am thankful for the shade.   The tree has been resolute and Rama Reddy - who, I must emphasise, is a nice person - has stuck to his promise, so one makes peace with the Real. 

There is additional consolation too, for the honge trees at Random Rubble have grown to adulthood and are rocking (no credit my way, rest assured), and I would like to think of that - many, near where one had been - as Revenge.  

Random Rubble Revenge sounds good, right?

And the happy end: this year, I am delighted to report, the standing Twin has outdone itself, flowering with the profusion of old, calling in bees of at least three species (and a solitary human).   The fragrance and soft earth, the buzz and bustle of bees and profusion of colour elicit Nostalgia and I sat under the shower of falling flowers, cradling them in my palms and hoping a bee or two would drop in.  

Nostalgia, you conclude, is exactly what it used to bee.