City Season – The Summertime Amaltas Flowers, Sukhrali Village, Gurgaon
The first sighting.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
It is one of the few nice things about the summer. And it has arrived. The Amaltas trees are starting to bloom. The golden yellow flowers have just begun to show up. These are still the early days but at least one roadside tree near Gurgaon’s Sukhrali village is dressed in Amaltas flowers from top to bottom.
The sight is beautiful.
This afternoon, the tree is outshining the fiery sun’s blinding light. Impossible to ignore, it is as densely clothed with flowers as a Pilkhan tree is with its fresh green leaves. The skin-searing breeze, however, is causing the flowers to fall down on the ground one after another. But their loss is going unnoticed. There are just too many of these golden marvels; some are still enclosed in their buds.
Usually the Amaltas flowers can only be admired from a distance. They tend to lurk in the higher parts of a tree. But this Amaltas has extremely low branches, some of which are originating almost from the base of the trunk. As a result of which the flowers are within your arm’s reach. You can actually hold them in your hands, and feel the texture of their petals.
This particular tree is blessed to have blossomed so early. A nearby Amaltas is almost bare. Nevertheless soon many lanes across the Delhi region shall come alive with these flowers and then this particular Amaltas will cease to stand out so prominently. But at least this week, in this locality, it is grabbing as much attention as a VVIP’S brat with a Chandigarh car number plate.
This golden era
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