City Hangout – Watching Shadow Leaves, Kasturba Gandhi Marg
Pure hypnotism.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
This is a free exhibition sponsored by Mother Nature and it can immediately calm the ruffled minds, if you have the time.
And it’s conveniently located on Kasturba Gandhi Road in Central Delhi.
Here, you’ll spot a long white pavement wall where the shadows of leaves appear to dance. It’s like viewing paper-cut drawings in old books.
Please do not mistake The Delhi Walla as a hopeless romantic finding non-existent beauty everywhere. You’ll understand my enthusiasm when you witness it.
This phenomenon is made possible by two grand peepal trees located strategically. When the afternoon sun beams on them, the shadow of swaying leaves fall on the wall, like slow-motion cinema photography.
On this breezy afternoon, each of these numerous shadows are almost trying to embrace one another, somewhat like mid-air acrobats in a circus. Looking at them for long is hypnotic.
The shadows are moving very slowly, like aircraft in the sky when viewed from the earth. A squirrel clamours up the wall, perching herself as though she has landed atop the leaves and their branches. It’s like magic realism hopping out of the pages of an Isabel Allende novel and transplanting itself on the real world.
You may well imagine that this grand show comes to crashing halt at sunset. Not so. The street lights now offer a second act, even more lovely and surreal than Act 1.
See it for yourself. You shall be bewitched. Promise.
The play of shadows
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