Delhi's seasonal illumination. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Leaves are slowly swaying in the mild breeze; people are walking with heads down. Such are the shadows falling on the roadside wall of tree-lined Kasturba Gandhi Marg. Caressed by the setting sun’s lukewarm light, the opaqueness of the painted bricks has been replaced by a strange iridescence, making the shadows look as clear as Matisse’s famous cut-outs. This happens every evening. But the phenomenon becomes more compelling at this time of the year--in and around October. The summer and monsoon are over, the deep winter is still to set in, and Dilli’s air is relatively free of smog. All these conditions unite to give the city a peculiar October light, which, at the

Season's guest. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Look at the photo. You’ll see a few familiar Delhi high-rises, and a tree dense with leaves. Look more concentratedly, and you might with some difficulty spot a few clustery flowers hanging like miniature chandeliers amid the invasive leaves. These are the year’s fresh saptaparnis, here at the B Block in Connaught Place’s Inner Circle, a flower’s throw from gate no. 1 exit of the underground Rajiv Chowk metro station. Saptaparnis are sighted across Delhi and its surrounding regions. A tree stands close to Gurugram railway station, not far from a small wayside temple. An unusually tall saptaparni guards a dusty service lane in Ghaziabad’s Vasundhara, sandwiched between a gym and a jhuggi. A

The other river. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] On googling for it, the first search result is of a military base, along with news links to events in Bangladesh—Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina fleeing the country, her flight landing at the aforementioned base. Hindon Air Force Station is next door to Delhi, in zila Ghaziabad, and takes its name from the region’s lesser-known river. This is because the Hindon is overshadowed by the Yamuna. To many Delhiwale, even the great Yamuna is experienced merely as a bottleneck to be endured during the long commutes. (For a long time, the poetic term ‘Yamuna-paar’ was abused by ignorant snobs to refer to what they imagine was the less posh side of the city, across

Never let me go. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] Such a strange sight--the tree is clad in golden yellow flowers from top to bottom. But it is mid-July, a time of the year when the sightings of these flowers become less frequent. The roadside Amaltas tree near Sukhrali village in Gurugram is refusing to let go of its blossoming. Same is the case with many other Amlatas trees in the city. The flowering of Amaltas trees is at its greatest around mid-May, a time of extreme heat. In literature, Amaltas bloom is frequently employed by novelists and poets to evoke the consoling aspect of summer. As the monsoon arrives, the blossoming begins to fade. Naturally, every summer this space devotes one

Summer’s gift [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] By yellow-and-green autos speeding along the Mathura Road, the heat-stricken citizen is walking wearily, past a deserted bus stop, past a woman selling bottled water, past a… here it is, right beside a “Go slow accident prone area” signboard. This tree in bloom. The Amaltas. See photo. Shivering feverishly in the light breeze, these golden-yellow flowers have shown up just in time, spotted on the last day of April. Amaltas marks the entry of summertime heatwaves. Use this city guide for a definitive darshan of the tree in blossom. Stroll along central Delhi’s Hailey Road. The dozens of Amaltas trees here tend to be entirely clothed in flowers. All day long they fall on the

Happy blues. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] On Saturday morning, Lithuanian ambassador Diana Mickevičienė was strolling in the little park close to her residence in Vasant Vihar, and found the trees clothed in purple flowers. The lanes too were densely carpeted with the same flowers, though on the ground they looked more like blue to her. A fellow park regular declared it to be neelmohar, the jacaranda. Owner of a leaves-filled copy of Pradip Krishen’s classic book Trees of Delhi, the ambassador wasn’t convinced. She snapped photos of the park’s dream-like sublime scenes and shared them on X, asking, “What is this tree?” Finally, she called up her “trees teacher” Debika Lahiri, who identified it as Moulmein rosewood. That said, Jacaranda,

Season’s spectacle. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Following are a few observations made in a city park one uncomfortably warm noon this week. 1. Currently, the most beautiful sight in Delhi is of two side-by-side bougainvillea trees in Lodhi Garden, close to the duck pond. 2. From afar, the two trees are twinning like Seeta aur Geeta, both being superfluously loaded with dark pink flowers. 3. The flowers are raining down nonstop from the bougainvillea branches, carpet bombing the muddy ground in pink. 4. These two bougainvillea trees bear flowers throughout the year, a park gardener asserts, but the densest blossoming occurs now, after the conclusion of winter. The lush bloom will last through the summer, she says, and will end with

New leaves. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Today is the holy Holi. This day of colours ends in hours, but some of the colours of Holi shall linger amid the trees of Delhi (even though the season’s red bloom of semal tree is reaching an end). All you have to do is to next week visit the District Park in Hauz Khas Village. The place has quite a few pilkhan trees, and most are about to dress up completely in new leaves. The leaves will be special— they glow in striking shades of red. Pointing to a tree, the guard at the park’s entrance identifies it as pilkhan, saying the green leaves will fall any day now. “Naye patte”