Where have all the flowers gone?

New day, I awoke to grey skies, mist, a leaden atmosphere. But then the sun broke through, gilding the rooftops, slipping through the half open window, lighting up the papers on my desk. The first miracle of the day. Now I must acknowledge the miracle and write a few lines glorifying the sun.

So where are my reading glasses? Here, right in front of me, so close that I missed them. The lenses need cleaning. Some of Delhi’s smog still clings to them. Landour would not approve. And here I am, back on my hilltop, pen in hand, spectacles balanced on my nose. The new day has begun.

But give me the sun and the open skies. I salute the earthworm, but I would rather watch this purple butterfly as it settles on a cosmos, drinking deep of its nectar.

The cosmos! My favourite flower. So clean, so fresh on the open hillside. As a small boy, I would wander down a glade full of cosmos, looking up at their white and mauve and magenta heads nodding above me.

In recent years, the cosmos has disappeared from Mussoorie and Landour hillsides. Climate changes, perhaps. Or too much building. No space left for space-loving flowers. I had to go all the way to Cloud End (some 11km from here) to find a new cosmos. Along with some deeply bronzed marigolds, they were enjoying the late autumn sunshine.

When I was young, I used to walk a lot. In my eighties, I find it difficult to scramble up and down slippery hill slopes. But from my window I can still see the little pine knoll, on a spur below Pari Tibba, which I would visit during those early years in Mussoorie. I called it my place of power.

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