My gulmohar

This is my all-time favourite flower, the gulmohar. I used to enjoy watching them bloom in Panjim, Goa in my childhood. Opposite the Mary Immaculate Conception Church is a rectangular park. Shops and colonial buildings overlook this park and this is where I learned to read. My Amma used to sit with me and patiently read the page of my Bal Bharati and have me follow along. All around the perimeter of this park are the blazing gulmohar trees of my childhood.

Long before the heartfelt mandate to 'not pluck flowers' my maternal grandfather ( Ajja) used to pick the blossoms that would fall to the ground and we would take them home. I used to be fascinated at the vibrant colours: red, blazing orange ( my favourite to this day) , some petals mottled with white spots like a butterfly wing.

I was very lucky to have grown up in a time before television stole such precious moments from lives of children. I was fortunate to be allowed the freedom to take things apart. I was allowed to WONDER, I was encouraged to ask questions. We used to play fight with the anthers of these very flowers, what else did we have in the long thunderous monsoons that rules the coast between June and September?

I came to Mumbai when I was in grade 9 and was delighted to discover that my flowers were here too. All along Marine Lines train station, the avenue, Maharshi Karve Road, beside Kala Niketan Sari Emporium, is lined with these trees. And think of the muscle memory, my friends: to this day, when the train emerges beside Mt. Pleasant in Toronto, my head automatically swivels to the left: alas the gulmohars are in Mumbai and not here.

Here, in my new home, they bloom in my heart. Friends, soulmates, siblings, send me photographs, they save petals for me, they write to me about the trees they have seen. And in those moments, my flowers bloom. And in that moment, my memories are immortal.

Here is one picture sent last year.