Red rising. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] This tree has such a bad timing. Each year, as the gulmohar begins to bloom, a more forceful distraction arrives: The bystander gets dazzled by the yellow blossoming of the Amaltas. But gulmohar arrives earlier. These days, throughout the metropolis, car windshields are crisscrossed with reflections of these red blossoms. Only now one realises the existence of so many gulmohars in our midst. The early flowers spring up in late April. “The first thing I see from my gate, when I pick up the newspapers, is the gulmohar in our society that was planted by my friend Prachi in 2008 when we both shifted here,” says author Farah Naaz, who lives in Gurgaon’s Ardee