Gulmohur Tree

Delonix Regia, Gulmohur, the flame tree and native of magdascar and mauritius. Gulmohur, i rolled the word in my mouth, sounds very moghul. Gul - flower and Mohur - coin; maybe. Although my marathi friend insists Mohur also means something like season in Marathi.

Ive always been fascinated by the fact that trees are almost symmetrical above and below ground. A stark contrast between light, air, breath and life and death , darkness and claustrophobia. Every tree perches on this divide with something like equanimity, but no the gulmohur is distinctive in almost dancing its way into confinement, the trunk in gentle whorls like the folds of a dancers gown.

My earliest memory of the gulmohur is at the house i used to live in as a child. It was big and blue, a whale of a colonial house. The bedroom was rectangular, stretching into in a semicircle. One whole side of the room was covered by windows- small squares, meticulously barred. I remember, once, on a summer night when the electricity went out , we opened up all the windows revealing the blooming gulmohur outside in all its glory. In the moonlight the tree pressed against the windows, almost bounding inside, filigreeing the view of the street outside.

It was in Bangalore and Chennai , that I saw the Gulmohur used extensively along streets as an ornamental tree. These trees were huge, so much that two from the opposite sides of the road intertwined, making a canopy through which the sun filtered and made you feel glad that you were alive.