SEASONS
Summer tales
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This season that we grumble about has many delights. S. THEODORE BASKARAN
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A MID-SUMMER DREAM: Forty winks. PHOTO: MOHAMMED YOUSUF
AMERICAN poet Maya Angelou's mother had a visitor who went on complaining about the weather. After she left, the old lady turned to Maya and told her, "There are people all over the world who went to sleep last night who did not wake again. Their beds have become their cooling boards; their blankets have become their winding sheets. They would give anything for just five minutes of what she was complaining about." I have this quote pinned on the soft board in my study, a constant reminder to be thankful for each day I wake up alive.
You meet people whose opening gambit for conversation is a griping about the weather. "It is not so much the heat that bothers me," they explain to you, "It is the humidity." When the weather was cooler a few months ago, when the mornings were misty, the nip in the air heralded a cool day and the koel called its heart out, I did not see them take note of it or do anything to celebrate the weather.
When the flowers bloom
This season of summer that we grumble about has many delights. It is the season for flowers in this part of our country. The Indian Laburnum tree transforms into a golden canopy. There are many in South Chennai. Lots of other trees bloom in summer, the rain tree, the neem and the Silk cotton. Some trees start sprouting new branches in summer, like the Pungamia. Different types of jasmine come into flower and turn your evenings magical. A terrestrial orchid of Tamil Nadu, the Golden Vanda, puts out flowers in the sizzling heat of April.
Trees and plants that bloom and bear fruit in summer fill us not only with scent and taste but also with memories. I am reminded of my college days when the Copper pod, flanking the mud roads in the campus in Tambaram, would break into a riot of yellow and carpet the ground beneath in the early morning. That sight announced the approaching examinations and the holidays that would follow. Brought from Malaysia, it has been here long enough to acquire a Tamil name, Perungkonrai. Even the Gulmohar tree, an exotic, celebrates the season by blossoming.
The flowers attract a host of birds. The fluid, mellow calls of the Golden Oriole comes floating through the rain trees, even as the early rays of sun hit its branches. Sunbirds visit the trees. Butterflies appear from nowhere and they are all around you. When the sun warms up, the drumming calls of the Coppersmith float through the branches of avenue trees. I open the window of my study and see the Painted bat, roosting in the foliage of the monstera creeper, is already asleep after a night's wandering, covering its body with its bright red and black wings.
The light shed by the moon takes on an ethereal quality in the hot months. It seems to be brighter and the sky clearer. The early morning and evening sunlight acquires a refulgent golden hue. And the sunsets turn dramatic. If you are in the countryside, watch the setting sun of summer. The sun appears larger as it sinks down the horizon like a gigantic ball of fire. Each second, the colours in the western horizon keep changing dramatically. The sunset over the Adyar estuary in Chennai is spectacular in summer.
In fact the idea of clear-cut seasons is alien to us. We have borrowed, along with the English language, the four-fold classification of seasons of that part of the world, which has little relevance to the seasons here. This labelling does not fit with what we experience in our external world. Ours is a tropical land where there is no autumn or spring. Here, the transition from one season to the other here is almost imperceptible. Traditionally, till 100 years ago, we had a six-fold classification of seasons: Here they are — Ilavenil (Chithirai-Vaikasi, April-May), Mudhuvenil (Ani-Aadi, June-July), Kaar (Aavani-Purattasi, August-September), Koodhir (Aippasi-Karthigai, October-November) Munpani (Markazhi-Thai, December-January) and lastly Pinpani (Masi-Panguni, February-March). This nomenclature renders our climate with a lot more meaning and acceptability.
And for me, the ultimate delight of summer is the mango. First, tentatively, and then in loads they start arriving. We just have to walk a few yards from our home and there they are: Banganapalli, Malgova, Dilpasand, Padhiri, Rumani, Senduraa and the humble Salem. Irresistible. I am convinced that the fruit Eve seduced Adam with was the mango and that the divine chroniclers slipped in documenting the event.
I think we have to accept summer not because we cannot do otherwise but because of the delights it holds. And that goes for the seasons of our lives too.
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