Through the silence shines a stretching light-

Living in Shimla, one often takes this humble bush for granted. For all of Septmeber and now, when e are well into October, this pretty blue plant is dotting the road-sides, clinging to hill-sides, creating a veritable sea of blue in the woods. At first glance, I thought these were gentians. But my favourite website on flowers Flowers of India clarifies that this is not so.

These flowers actually bleong to the blue trumpet bush, also known as strobilanthes tomentosa. I've seen it grow in the woody, partially-lit slopes of the Sheogh woods, in Chaura Maidan and also near the United Service Club on Jakhoo Hill. It grows up to almost four feet in height. The leaves appeared very interesting: dark green on top and white on the underside.

The flower, as you can see in the picture, is shaped like a trumpet and stands at a 90-degree angle to its stem. It has a narrow tube which widens a little as it goes upward, finally opening into five round petals.

What a joyous aspect: little trumpets of bright blue, silently blowing the last clarion call of spring even as it is over and autumn steals upon us quietly, with a red melancholy....

The sight of these flowers brought to mind that wonderful Mary Oliver poem:

Every day

I see or hear

something

that more or less

kills me

with delight,

that leaves me

like a needle

in the haystack

of light.

It was what I was born for -

to look, to listen,

to lose myself

inside this soft world -

to instruct myself

over and over

in joy,

and acclamation.

Nor am I talking,

about the exceptional.

the fearful, the dreadful,

the very extravagant -

but of the ordinary,

the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.

Oh, good scholar,

I say to myself,

how can you help

but grow wise

with such teachings

as these -

the untrimmable light

of the world,

the ocean's shine,

the prayers that are made

out of grass?

The pedigree of Honey, Does not concern the Bee.

I love Emily Dickinson and am proud to share with her a love of nature and an excessive fondness for bees! Yesterday, while walking in the woods, I came across so many burly dozing ones, honey-heavy, bees fluttering from flower to flower, truly justifying the metaphor busy as a bee. I love the sight of a bee, how cleverly it suspends itself mid-air, its gossamer-thin wings supporting the weight of its body, greedily sipping nectar from a flower and yet never ever trampling the petals or crushing the aroma.... Emerson calls the bee a "zig-zag steerer, desert cheerer". Truly, he's a sailor of the atmosphere, sailing through the air and a yellow-breeched philosopher.... 

His labour is a Chant —

His Idleness — A Tune 

Oh, for a Bee's Experience 

Of Clovers, and of Noon! 

The Bee is not afraid of me.

I know the Butterfly. 

The pretty people in the Woods 

receive me cordially! 

And then there is that wonderful haiku by the master himself - Matsuo Basho: 


A bee
staggers out 
of the peony.

Small, contained, fragile, intent.

That is how I would describe my friend the snail, met in a leaf in Sheogh.

And on seeing her, I was reminded of this John Bunyan poem:

She goes but softly, but she goeth sure,

She stumbles not, as stronger creatures do.

Her journey's shorter, so she may endure

Better than they ehich do much farther go.

She makes no noise, but stilly seizeth on

The flower or herb appointed for her food,

That which she quietly doth feed upon

While others range and glare, but find no good.

And though she doth but very softly go,

However, 'tis not fast nor slow, but sure;

And certainly they that do travel so,

The prize they do aim at they do procure.

Thou blushest from the painter's page, Robed in the mimic tints of art...

Still, still my eye will gaze long fixed on thee,

Till I forget that I am called a man,

And at thy side fast-rooted seem to be,

And the breeze comes my cheek with thine to fan,

Upon this craggy hill our life shall pass,

A life of summer days and summer joys,

Nodding our honey-bells mild pliant grass,

In which the bee half hid his time employs,

And here we'll drink with thirsty pores the rain,

And turn, dew-sprinkled, to the sun,

And look when in the flaming west again,

His orb across the heaven its path has run;

Here left in the darkness on the rocky steep,

My weary eyes shall close like folding flowers in sleep.

~ Jones Very ~

I spotted Columbines in the woods of Sheogh in June last year, thanks to Dr. Suresh Nair. This year, they were closer at hand in Sanjiv's lovely garden. In Sheogh, I found it growing in partial shade, whereas at Sanjiv's place, it grows in full sunlight. Its height in both places was about 15 to 20 inches. Sanjiv says the plant is partial to a well-drained soil, but is hardy enough not to require mulching or protection in the winter. She informs that she propagates it by seed.

Elegantly formed and coloured in shades of lilac, violet and white, this flower is very easy to distinguish because of its five backward projecting spurs of the inner petals. A row of inner and outer petals form the columbine, which grows at a 90-degree angle to its stem. The leaves appeared similar to ferns to my untrained eye.

The botanical name of the columbine Aquilegia comes from the Latin word aquila, an eagle, perhaps, in reference to the claw-like spurs which grow at the back of the flower. The name columbine comes from columba, a dove.

Scientific details:

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliospida

Order: Ranunculales

Family: Ranunculaceae

Genus: Aquilegia

O sweet woods, the delight of solitariness!

I love walking in the Sheogh woods, and try to go there at least once every month, if only to observe its changing hues. The moist, half-open darkness beckons, as if to share something deep and secret, the muffled cry of a torn heart, or the whisper of a slowly awakening joy.

I go there to escape the sharp nudgings of ambition. The harsh calls of thought are stilled in the sweet damp woods. Feasting on the fresh air, it is a memorable experience to lose myself a little while in the dappled shades and the speckled sunshine. The mild light chequers and partitions the view of the woods ahead and the dales deep beyond.
Nature does not let me fret and fume.

Where sunshine flecks the green,
Through towering woods my way
Goes winding all day.
Scant are the flowers that bloom
Beneath the bosky screen
And cage of golden gloom.
Few are the birds that call
Shrill-voiced and seldom seen.
Where silence masters all,
And light my footsteps fall,
The whispering runnels only
With blazing noon confer;
And comes no breeze to stir
The tangled thickets lonely.

~ Siegfried Sassoon ~

The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, milk.

The living language is like a cowpath: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay in the narrow path she helped make, following the contour of the land, but she often profits by staying with it and she would be handicapped if she didn't know where it was or where it led to.

~ E.B. (Elwyn Brooks) White (1899-1985), U.S. author, editor. repr. in Writings from the New Yorker.



On a lighter note, I was reminded of this R L Stevenson poem I learnt as a child when I saw this cow:



The friendly cow all red and white,
I love her with all my heart:
She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart.
She wanders lowing here and there,
And yet she cannot stray,
All in the pleasant open air,
The pleasant light of day;
And blown by all the winds that pass
And wet with all the showers
She walks among the meadow grass
And eats the meadow flowers.

A forest reverie...

'Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
To springs that ne'er did flow
That in the sun Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.

So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died--
Quenching the fires its ashes hide,--
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,
The rare and radiant flowers of song!

~ Edgar Allan Poe ~

Clematis and cabbage.

Nature has place for both, says the venerable Thoreau. So right he is, because not every every truth recommends itself to common sense! Some truths are romantic, others sensible. We must decide: do we choose to look at the cabbage or at the clematis? If you're an idealist, you may be tempted to conclude that merely because the clematis smells better than the cabbage, it makes better soup. But then you're entitled to such a perspective!

Walking in the Sheogh woods is ever a pleasure. Every month reveals fickle bugs and capricious flora. A little velvety starlet which caught your eye in March vanishes in September. That little black spiny fellow who went scampering under a bush in May goes off for his winter vacation and will only put in an appearance next year. Still, in the spirit of gathering ye flowers while ye May, one ventures back into the forest over and over again; unfailingly treated to some new species each time.

This time, I discover Clematis connata.

The Dictionary of Botanical Epithets describes this plant as "clematis "= climbing; "connata " = connate, fused together.
This is pretty lemon-coloured, bell-shaped flower about an inch long. It is mildly fragrant. It had four long petals that curve outwards and are finely woolly-haired when seen up close. The anthers are creamy green and the leaves, a glossy green pinnate. The flowers are hermaphrodite (have both male and female organs) and are pollinated by bees and flies. I found the flowers growing in warm, sunny, yet sheltered spots. The soil looked moist, but well-drained. The leafstalks had wrapped themselves around twigs and branches for support.

I'm tickled to find this smarmy and retro Alexander Bathgate poem in the Gardener's Book of Poems:

Fair crown of stars of purest ray,
Hung aloft on Mapau tree,
What floral beauties ye display,
Stars of snowy purity;
Around the dark-leaved mapau's head
Unsullied garlands ye have spread.

Concealed were all thy beauties rare
'Neath the dark umbrageous shade,
But still to gain the loftiest spray,
Thy weak stem its efforts made;
Now, every obstacle o'ercome,
Thou smilest from thy leafy home.

That home secure, 'mid sombre leaves
Yielded by thy stalwart spouse,
Helps thee to show thy fairy crown,
Decorates his dusky boughs:
His strength, thy beauty, both unite
And form a picture to delight.

Fair flower, methinks thou dost afford
Emblem of a perfect wife,
Whose work is hidden from the world,
Till, perchance, her husband's life
Is by her influence beautified,
And this by others is descried.

---

The humble cabbage is native to the Mediterranean and was known to the Greeks and Romans, even finds place in Cato's writings. Then man, it seems, praised it for its medicinal value and called it a vegetable that "surpasses all vegetables"! This is a herbaceous, biennial plant which is a great source of Vitamin C and riboflavin and contains significant quantities of glutamine, an amino-acid which has anti-inflammatory properties.

This leads me to conclude that some truths, no matter how unattractive, may actually be good for you!

What's bugging me?

I went walking in the forest of Sheogh with G, K, S, A and little M yesterday. These are deep woods located a little outside Shimla. For a paltry fee of Rs. 200, you can go up to the little rest house owned by the Forest Department, but no further. That pleasure is restricted to the heaven-born, such as yours truly. Be warned that the guest house has no amenities except a wonderfully pink toilet. You will need to carry your own food, water and other dire necessities. My fellow explorers and I spotted a group of the well-heeled, delicately sipping wine and eating little cucumber sandwiches with their pinkies raised. I can never help marvelling over the variety of people I get to meet on the road (or, as in this case, the forest)!

But, back to my group, a truly marvellous time was had by all. This was in large measure thanks to two of our companions: A who is an expert on forestry and pointed out all sorts of interesting details about the different types of trees which grow there; and S who is a scientist and taught us more in half a day than all Botany teachers in middle school could over several years.

It's incredible how the people with whom you journey can totally alter your perception and transform your experience!

We saw many varieties of trees, plants, flowers (which will make their way into this blog soon, I'm sure). But the best of all were the bugs! I wasn't able to identify a single one, but they were all fascinating, each of a different hue, each busily collecting nectar, taking off from this leaf, landing on that petal: the whole forest buzzed with activity.


I was reminded of an Aileen Fisher poem I'd read as a child. It went like this:

Don't you think it's probable
that beetles, bugs and bees
talk about a lot of things -
you know, such things as these:

The kind of weather where they live
in jungles tall with grass,
and earthquakes in their villages
whenever people pass.

You know what was so fascinating about the fat little spider in the picture above? He was the exact same shape, size and colour of the buds of the common broom plant on which he was building his webby home. The camouflage was so perfect that one of us nearly plucked him out, thinking him to be a fat little flowerbud!

A small, speckled visitor
Wearing a crimson cape,
Brighter than a cherry,
Smaller than a grape!

This little fellow reminded me of a senior colleague: someone who is great at punching holes into just about anything that's put before her!