Monday, January 21, 2008

Misplaced Thought. Misplaced Time.

When you walk down Southern Avenue in the summer the Gulmohar trees are in flower, and there are fiery blossoms everywhere. You recall old lyrics from songs – mostly Gulzar – and realise that you’re wading through a stream of molten lava, with little sparks falling onto your cheek. You lose track of time, trying to locate each blossom as it wafts through the branches, and it is so easy and so necessary that suddenly you can disregard everything else. The various vendors you can overlook, the cigarette sellers and paanwallahs cease to exist. The breaks in the footpath are mere annoyances that you have to cross as quickly as possible, holding on to the memory of the footpath that left off a few seconds ago so that you can bring it out and sew it up with the footpath that now begins again. You create an uninterrupted little motion picture of glowing orange and red, and give yourself the starring role.

Vivekananda Park is now but a field of lovers and football matches and shady characters with shady smoke hanging about them; they matter not. Even the prim, fortress-like building with the mysterious signboard that declares (very quietly, in two languages) that it is the Polish Consulate loses its charm. It is in the sudden wetness of the cloth sticking to your back that the magic lies; it is with the hasty breeze hitting the nape of your neck that the Gulmohars fall.

In summer Southern Avenue is a name so mundane that it shrieks to be re-christened. You call it Flameflower Street, and get out of the house early so that you can walk slowly and aimlessly to art class – it seems the right thing to do, to walk down a blazing street and into a room with a canvas waiting to be coloured. Every time you walk a little slower. And you keep promising yourself, every summer, that you will spend an entire afternoon there with just your camera and the truant breezes for company.

But it is only in barren winter that promises are remembered. Which is why you are writing this – there are three months till summer, and your memory isn’t clockwork, and you hope that you will remember it. And that maybe someone will remind you.

21 kindred spirits have swallowed my rambling:

Safdar said...

beautiful.





i think writing anything else will spoil it, really.

raghu said...

lovely.

heh? ok said...

spring. this post reminds me of spring in shillong, and a certain quiet street lined with trees laden with pink and purple blossoms. blissful.

speedpost said...

Finally one about the Gulmohars!

undifferentiated said...

ummm your humourous prose is better than your serious prose

dunno if the term serious prose exists or will be allowed usage by the literary police.

but funny is your forte.for sure.and how!

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

@ safdar and raghu: i'm always happy when people like what i write *beams*

@ heh?ok: i've wanted to go to the north east for the longest time. and pink and purple blossoms.. now i'm definitely hounding my dad.

@ speedpost: heh. i know, i know, i'm obsessed with them. but they're just so beautiful

@ adwaita: i don't set out to write humourous prose in the first place! i think your mindframe when you write reflects in your writing. so yes, if i think something is ridiculous, that's how it will turn out. and if it's a random thought about a tree or a road, i can't possibly make it funny if i'm just thinking about, well, a tree or a road :)

your comment does help, though, because i agree with what you said to a certain point. but hey, it's my blog and i can write what i like *evil grin*

maybe i'll inflict a tragic love story on you next *grins some more*

Anchal...closeview said...

hey i live in southern avenue,its home.we often forget to appreciate our closest surroundings;but u r right,southern avenur is beautiful.about vivekananda park and the couples
*knows what she means*...well err..the chills of winter..

undifferentiated said...

u write swthrt u jst kp writing till hells' end and beyond.siply coz u gud at it.and am very sure u lov doin it. *grins* and ur blog is brilliant.so kudos!

ad libber said...

Its freezing cold and my nose, as anne would say, is a pale azure blue. Your post is very well timed. Ah Spring...

Magically Bored said...

Lovely post. Very romantic.

Clezevra said...

Anne of Green Gables. That's what the renaming to FlameFlower Street reminds me off. Lovely.

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

@ anchal: well, my area has a fishmarket in it. i refuse to appreciate it.

@ adwaita: sure thing :)

@ ad libber: anne lived in canada. i wish it would get as cold as canada here. the weather now is the next best thing, i think.

@ fishy: well, i guess i'm a hidden romantic then. eek.

@ clezevra: ah. i love finding fellow anne fans. isn't it wonderful when you've been doing something for as long as you can remember, and then you read about someone else who does it too in a book? renaming and anne has always been that way... also her anticipation and fear of bridges. i felt like dancing a waltz when i read about that.

Bone said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bone said...

erm kid i hang around at vivekananda park (the famous chompadi'r cha'er dokan) once in a while and i'd like to believe i'm none of those things that you mention. and you forgot the spotted white cows by the way. clearly you have never (physically) bumped into them in the darkness while trying to cross the park.

and ahwell, southernavenue memories :D

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

that, thankfully, i have never been subject to. maybe because i've never crossed the park in the darkness. public safety anxieties, i think.

Bone said...

okay, correction. i'm prolly a bit of a shadycharacter (a bit, mind) so you're not entirely wrong there :D

oh also. i'll need the email id you blog with to send you invitation to the collablog. i'm not in a state to start before february though, but still. my email would be child.without.god@gmail.com.

Maximum Boy said...

i love the last bit.

i like the stitching of the footpath. i usally hop over the broken bit, i'll try stiching now.

new age scheherazade said...

god.is THIS what you call indifferent?

I honestly think you've surpassed Anne. this is something more than fanciful. i think i got the flash.

fabulous.

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

@ maximum boy: hopping doesn't sound too bad either. =)

@ newage: well, the other two were. and look at the clezevra girl. another anne fan! and her name's also like something you'd make up to hide a common name, na? like cordelia fitzgerald? ;)

Elendil said...

Have you noticed the beautiful Romantic irony in this post? You've said that the Gulmohar Trees is the focus and 'you can disregard everything else', and then gone on to revel in the beauty of just about everything else.

This is a lovely post.

Doubletake, Doublethink. said...

oh, i didn't notice that part. *sheepish look*