we are like this only

Sadly, in life, you tend to appreciate things more when they are gone. Like all the gardens in the various Lutyens bungalows we lived in while Dad was in the government. Now I have a handkerchief-sized patch of lawn on which you have to really struggle to make even grass grow, and most of my 'trees' grow in pots. But luckily I live in Delhi which in this season is spectacular. All manner of spring flowers are out in a riot of colour – phlox, pansies, poppies, dahlias, mums, Sweet Williams, impatiens and more. The colony I live in has many avid gardeners so it's a joy to walk around and see how different people plan their garden. One lady has a gorgeous Petrea which blooms for barely 15 days but in that time the entire creeper is covered in starry lavender coloured flowers. My gardener unfortunately killed off my petrea but today I'm planning to go shop for it at the Khan Market nursery. Another neighbor plants the flowers in great masses in front of her house so it look...

Yesterday we enjoyed one among the free pleasures of living in Delhi. The weather was perfect - sunny but with a cool breeze that made it delightful to spend time outdoors. So we set off on an expedition to Mughal Gardens, my grandma in tow. We sped through the traffic on the expressway and reached the heart of Delhi in barely 20 minutes. Of course, it then took us another 20 minutes to finally figure out how to get to the entrance of the garden, which is attached to Rashtrapati Bhavan, the President's Estate. The parking was pretty haphazard and the queue seemed endless so we had nightmare visions of standing in line for hours. But luckily the line moved fairly quickly, the only hitch being no mobile phones ( or cameras) were allowed, so once they separated the men and women, you could end up lost inside. In fact, as we queued up for the many security checks, we kept hearing announcements of lots of children separated from their parents, husbands missing wives and so forth. ...

Sometimes I think the weather God is a malicious little imp who just waits to see what the Indian met department will come up with before doing just the opposite. We in India have had an inkling of this over the years, so, for instance whenever the met bureau predicts rain we know to leave our umbrellas and raincoats at home and whenever they predict a cold wave, we dig out our bikinis and dust off the sun-beds. But in the last week, they have made even bigger fools of themselves than ever before. It started last week with the Beeb, of all channels, predicting that the current temperature on Tuesday evening was 2.4 degrees C and that it would hit zero within the week. All the Indian media were all over it and the Met bureau issued all kinds of cold front warnings. All schools in NCR declared holidays on Thursday and Friday - only to be greeted with the kind of sunny, warm weather which makes it a delight to be out and about in the winter. The cold wave warnings done with, once Sunday s...