A City Autumn

The pumpkins are dozing in the sun.

Princess Jasmine is chasing Snow White and Cinderella (or is it Anna from Frozen, Princesses are so hard to tell apart). Iron Man and Captain America are hanging upside down from the monkey bars. The school playground seems to be holding a symposium of Princesses and Superheroes– the genders neatly set apart. The pediatric dentistry nearby is handing out free candy. It is good for business, I suppose. Little plastic pumpkin buckets overflow with high fructose corn syrup wrapped in crinkle.

The dogs are out on the walk of shame: the Terrier is wearing a pink tutu and the Bulldog is a pirate. The Chihuahua with the playboy bunny ears is hiding behind the trash bags. The non-costumed Retriever looks at me, I look at the costumed humans around me, and smile back in sympathy.

Oh Halloween! How you’ve become the least loved of all occasions for the glorification of the two dreadful S’s– sexism and sugar (the new cocaine, the opiate of the masses). 

***

One day I step out of the house as usual and come upon this. How unexpected is autumn’s advance. How soon it peaks. And sooner still it is gone.

 ***

Even that street reluctantly trudged through during summer now seems almost inviting. Almost. As Ghalib said,

Hum ko maaloom hai jannat ki haqeeqat, lekin
Dil ko khush rakhne ko Ghalib yeh khayaal achcha hai

(Roughly translated: We know the realities of paradise, but/ to keep the heart happy Ghalib this is a good thought)

  ***

The light bounces. It is a fact and the unintended consequence of skyscrapers with glass windows. It isn’t just the sun’s trajectory across the sky that determines where there will be light, and where the shadows will fall. The light now received is offered back. Places that once resided in shadows, host startling light projections.

***

A city park at any time of the year is paradise within reach, unequivocally. Especially, the less frequented parts. I think even Ghalib would have agreed.

***

“Next stop is 14^th Street.” Booms the voice through the air vents on the sidewalk and the subway rumbles on under my feet. Yes, yes, I too could have been on that train and there in the next 4 minutes. But for Sumac’s blazing glory. A sight definitely worth hundreds of footsteps, if not air miles.

October State of Mind

Last October while walking in Central Park we made three wishes. In time all three came true. How were we to know that that particular twilight was infused with pixie dust? For if we had known we’d not have been so casual with our wishes. And of course, been mindful of the caveat: be careful what you wish for.

Some years ago, we received a benediction; you are lucky to be able to do what you want and to do it at your own terms. The benediction was heartfelt, but how it weighs on our heads. Can you imagine what the benediction entails?

We say, ‘come to think of it all regrets, if there are any, are about not compromising on our principles’. But it is only the foolish that regret, and only the foolish that collect causes for regrets. So it goes.

*

October is always a state of mind.

October when the harvest comes home. No matter where you live, you reap what you sow. Back home the beginning of celebrations, most prominently marked by the start of the great Indian wedding season. Out here in the global West with the sun low in the sky, the leaves turning color, seeds parachuting in the wind, the harvest ushers in another state of mind, and one that closely resonates with mine:

“Of apple-picking: I am overtired

Of the great harvest I myself desired.

There were ten thousand fruit to touch,

Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.

For all

That struck the earth,

No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,

Went surely to the cider-apple heap

As of no worth.

One can see what will trouble

This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.”

– Robert Frost, After Apple–Picking

*

October, gorgeous October. 

Today it gently rains and outside my window there are yellowed leaves in the wind: hundreds of twirling dervishes, mesmerizing, hypnotic. Now the wind pauses and a lone yellow leaf launches from the rooftop garden far above. Unlike the wind orchestrated frantic twirling from a few moments before, it makes its way down slowly one floor at a time. It took an eternity, but there it is now one with the yellow pile by the curbside.

 It is only the foolish that regret, and only the foolish that collect causes for regrets.

(For another look at autumn in five pictures and poems begin here: http://on.fb.me/1wRoBpG)

The blue air, the yellow trees

 To view the album 'Autumn Trees' click here.

(The trees in the photographs are Poplar not the Beech trees mentioned in the poem below. That brings me to another favourite autumn painting–  Autumn Effect at Argenteuil (1873) by Claude Monet.)

Although what glitters

         on the trees,

row after perfect row,

        is merely

the injustice

        of the world,

the chips on the bark of each

        beech tree

catching the light, the sum

        of these delays

is the beautiful, the human

        beautiful,

body of flaws.

        The dead

would give anything

        I’m sure,

to step again onto

        the leafrot,

into the avenue of mottled shadows,

        the speckled

broken skins. The dead

        in their sheer

open parenthesis, what they

        wouldn’t give

for something to lean on

        that won’t

give way. I think I

        would weep

for the moral nature

        of this world,

for right and wrong like pools

        of shadow

and light you can step in

        and out of

crossing this yellow beech forest,

        this buchen-wald,

one autumn afternoon, late

        in the twentieth

century, in hollow light,

        in gaseous light. . . .

To receive the light

        and return it

and stand in rows, anonymous,

        is a sweet secret

even the air wishes

        it could unlock.

See how it pokes at them

        in little hooks,

the blue air, the yellow trees.

Excerpt from "Two Paintings by Gustav Klimt", a poem by Jorie Graham. The painting being referred to in this part of the poem is Klimt's Buchenwald (Beech Forest).  

The Other Autumn

Watercolour pencil on acid free paper

For most of us, people who have grown up and are living in Indian cities, autumn as a season exists only in the imagination.

The complete post and the rest of the album of illustrations are here.

Fall, leaves, fall

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

– "Fall, leaves, fall" a poem by Emily Jane Brontë.

To Autumn

Even if something is left undone,
Everyone must take time to sit still,
and watch the leaves turn.
(Elizabeth Lawrence)


October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came-
The Chestnut, Oak and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand.
Miss Weather lead the dancing.
And Professor Wind the band.
(George Cooper)


Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
but only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down today.
Nothing gold can stay.
(Robert Frost)


In memory yet green, in joy still felt,
The scenes of life rise sharply into view.
We triumph; life's disaster are undealt,
And while all else is old, the world is new.
(Issac Asimov)


We cling to our point of view,
as though everything depended on it.
Yet our opinions have no permanence;
like autumn and winter they gradually pass away.
(Chuang Tsu)

They are back in town

The air feels crisp as you lift the coat collars and tighten the knot on the scarf around your neck. The sunlight has a quality of gold reserved especially for an autumn day. Brilliant yellow, olive green, orange, rust, red and brown are the dominant shades the trees flamboyantly display.

And the sky is filled with black-headed gulls in their winter plumage overpowering the street sounds with their sharp kek, kek as they meet and greet their cousins who have recently moved south from Europe. The solitary gull that patrolled the canal in summer is now a part of a large pack that goes krreearr and dives at the sight of the smallest morsel tossed by a passer by. The gulls are back.

So, begins a new daily ritual. After clearing the breakfast table you stand with a handful of breadcrumbs and play ‘toss and catch’ with them. Till they hover just outside your balcony, squabbling and swooping even before the tiny piece leaves your fingers. Someday maybe they’ll care to come in and join you for a cuppa.

In broad daylight

The blue tits are busy at play. The goldfinches are scurrying in the hedgerows. A blue and yellow dash here and a red and yellow there. The robin sings its ‘wistful’ and ‘melodic’ song while marking territory. The spotted woodpecker has chosen to visit our balcony. The autumn sun filters through the trees catching now a yellow, now a red falling leaf. Anthony hasn’t come today to spend his afternoon following the birds and taking pictures. The feeders hanging in the park are unguarded and empty of all activity.

And then come the squirrels and what follows is the most daring daytime robbery. Ever. In a few minutes the feeders swing lightly emptied of all weight. And the cheeky robbers can be seen fleeing hither and thither while carrying away mouthfuls of bounty to some secret den.

Only a few pictures remain to tell the tale of their audacity.