More heat, more flowers. As Delhi gets white hot in May, the multi-colored flowers of the thorny bougainvillea spread across the capital in shades of pink, white, brown, yellow, orange, purple and blue. These papery flowers are scentless. “Bougainvilleas are hardy in nature,” says Dr SS Sandhu,...
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A time of the year. It is early March. The coldness in Delhi’s air is arriving at an end. One early morning The Delhi Walla went to India Gate maidan in the center of the capital. There I walked amid the last of the season’s mist. Ignorant...
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The auto driver’s watering hole. June in Delhi means burning heat, intense humidity, erratic water supply and irregular power cuts. Every person in the city, whether rich or poor, finds a refuge to escape from the sun: in an air-conditioned room or under a tree. This convenience...
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The yellow flowers of May. The amaltas, or cassia fistula, starts to shed its leaves early in April. One of the most widespread forest trees of India, it flowers in May. During this month in Delhi, the streets, roundabouts, avenues and parks glow with the yellow bloom...
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Sweet and short. At last it is spring. The Oxford English dictionary describes it as “the season after winter and before summer, in which vegetation begins to appear.” In the West, this is the time when new leaves start appearing on trees that were bare in winter....
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The end of summer. Mid-morning. Kasturba Gandhi Marg: the biker in a long sleeved shirt. Safdarjang’s Tomb: the stones of the monument no longer burn the bare feet. A bungalow in Green Park: blankets drying off on balcony railings. Kinari Bazaar: quilts on sale. Matia Mahal bazaar:...
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The gift of summer. The beginning of Delhi’s harsh summer has its comforts. In March and April as the temperature rises, the city’s green cover is taken over by bougainvillea flowers. The red buds and their brown thorny vines creep up the trees and bend across the...
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The spring season oddities. Smelling a pink silk tree flower, Raluca Sidon, a visitor from Bucharest, Romania, says, “I’m seeing it for the first time. It doesn’t grow in my country. I have only read about them in books.” The Delhi Walla is with Ms Sidon in...
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The yellow of the spring. Every year as winter gives way to Delhi’s short spring spell, the Delhiwallas mark the shift in season by offering yellow mustard flowers at the shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya, the 14th century sufi saint. On February 7, 2011, the eve of...
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Delhi ceases to be Delhi. Evening. Early November. Very soon, the doors leading to the tomb of Hazrat Nizamuddin Auliya will close not at 10 pm, the usual time, but half an hour earlier. This will mean that winter has finally arrived in Delhi. The same night,...
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