City Season – Amaltas in Blossom, Lajpat Nagar
Summer’s gift. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The park has no grass. Tailor “master” Mehmood Alam enters this dull brown earth, lays out a mat towards the west and starts to offer his evening prayers. The scene is…
City Season – Gulmohar Sightings, Gulmohar Park & Elsewhere
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….
City Season – New Leaves of Pilkhan Trees, Deer Park and Elsewhere
Spring scenario. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] How can there be so much disconcert in the world when pilkhan is dressed in new leaves? These are not a singular shade of red. Some leaves have a burnished tinge,…
City Season – Bougainvillaea Watching, Indirapuram & Other Places
A sight most surreal. [Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi] You really have to be in this place in Ghaziabad to believe it. Even if your home is as far away as in Gurgaon, or Faridabad, or Uttam Nagar….
City Season – Leaf Fall, Around Town
Autumn in March. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There is a particularly friendly tree in Jacobpura in old Gurgaon, under whose shade the area’s cart pullers would sit for a few minutes of repose. But today the place is…
City Season – Semal in Bloom, Around Town
Red blessings. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The glass-concrete office complex in Gurgaon’s Shankar Chowk is gigantic beyond belief. On the other hand, the prettier pavement tree stands some distance away. It is glossed with thick red flowers…
City Nature – Saptaparni Flowers, Around Town
Winter’s bloom. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Winter is here. Those feeling homesick for the golden-yellow flowers of the amaltas must resign themselves to a long wait for the tree’s summertime bloom. Some interim relief will however arrive…
City Nature – Monsoon Blush, Pilkhan Trees
Time of their life. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] Do trees blush like we, humans, do? When the face turns red out of intense shyness? Well, these days some of Delhi’s trees, the pilkhans, are in full blush….
City Season – Gulmohar Blossoming, Around Town
Red rising. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] There’s fire raging these days across the city. The gulmohar trees are in scarlet bloom. Their flowering tend to be unpredictable. Sometimes they’re just a few vines of blossom in the…
City Season – Amaltas Bloom, Green Park & Elsewhere
A season of loss. [Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi] The tree is clothed in golden-yellow, but of a very pale shade. Amaltas flowers are known for more glow, more flamboyance. This tree, here in Green Park, must be…
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