Flames of the season.

[Text and photo by Mayank Austen Soofi]

With utmost regards to the great poet of Waste Land, April is not the cruellest month. Certainly not in Delhi. Look around—gulmohar trees are starting to shoot out their bloom in passionate tints of red To be sure, the spring-time bloom of Delhi’s semal trees too shows up in the same colour, but the pulpy semal flowers don’t have the hot-bloodedness of the gulmohurs. No wonder the latter is also referred to as ‘flame tree.’

One gulmohur, currently in notable bloom, stands within the India Gate circle. The tree is wholly covered with flowers; the woody trunk barely visible. Indeed, under the white hot sky, the flaming red is getting too sheeny for the eyes. Better gaze at the other gulmohars dotting the vicinity; their red not as dense.

Similarly sparse is the bloom of a tall gulmohar standing close to Shivaji Stadium metro station, on Baba Kharak Singh Marg. Only the top is flecked with flowers. The tree is nevertheless dramatic because it happens to be the only gulmohar stranded in a leafy cluster of peepals and pilkhans. From a distance, the panorama is suggestive of a green mountain range, the peak dusted in red snow.

Meanwhile, south Delhi’s Gulmohar Park is striving hard to deserve its name. In the locality’s community park, a lush-red gulmohar leans over a narrow walking track, forming a mini arbour. Another gulmohur stands beside a bench, the dusty ground underneath littered over with red. Each of these fallen flowers consists of five spoon-shaped petals; the largest petal always standing apart from the rest. It being not red, but white, the surface speckled with yellow and scarlet.

This afternoon in posh Nizamuddin East, a housekeeper is standing motionless on a private park-facing terrace. She is gazing towards an adjacent gulmohur. The tree’s red canopy strikes a picturesque pairing with a distant dome in blue. But the woman says she is not paying attention to the instagrammable scene. “I’m thinking of my son, he must focus more on his studies.”

Later in the evening as the heat recedes, papad seller Makhan Singh arrives at the aforementioned India Gate circle with his large straw basket. Here he daily hawks his crispy thali-sized snack until midnight. Suddenly his attention turns to a gulmohur in bloom (see photo). The gulmohar bloom ends in June.