Tangents
Summer <i>Breeze </i>
Jarul flower just before the breeze. Photo: Ihtisham Kabir
I am reminded again that a breeze in summertime is the sweetest thing. Two hours after an unexpected but welcome early morning rain, the heat returns with a vengeance. It is not even eight am, but the sun glows hot, threatening another merciless summer's day. Then the summer breeze begins to blow. I see the breeze through my camera's viewfinder before I feel it, because the Jarul flower I am photographing stops sitting still for me. In seconds the breeze envelopes me with its coolness. The photographer in me dislikes the breeze because the slightest movement can upset my picture. But at this moment, my mind's photographic complaints are vetoed by my body's need for self-preservation. The breeze, you see, not only cools me, but it also confuses the nasty mosquitoes that see me as their all-you-can-eat breakfast. They are tiny and fast, creating large purple welts where they bite. The breeze throws them off their deadly trajectory. This breeze has no set direction - it blows this way and that. The trees, which are full of new leaves after winter, respond with their own rhythm. Some leaves, like the small ones of a menda or neem tree, undulate like waves with the breeze. The branches flicker between the darker and shinier faces of the leaves. The tiny leaves growing from the trunk of babla trees look as if they are about to wriggle free and fly away. Next to the pond grows a coconut tree. The spine of its large leaf sways gently to and fro, but the long, thin strands of the leaf swing to their own beat. The languid motion conjures visions of blissful exotic islands. On a nearby field, puffy dry wildflowers called pishach disintegrate from their long stalks and drift away in the breeze. Jackfruit leaves, being heavy, don't like to move in the breeze. The only concession this solid tree makes to the breeze is to drop a few yellow leaves. The mango tree will not allow its leaves and branches to be seduced by the breeze, either. But the green mangoes dangling from its branches are another matter. They are here for a short time and happily dance with the breeze. In Italy in summertime, a harsh wind blows in from the North African desert. It even has its own name: Scirocco. People in the south of France dread the hot unpleasant summer wind called Mistral. Summer winds in other parts of Africa are called Harmattan or Khamsin and evoke fear because of their ferocity. In America, the summer wind called Chinook blows down from the mountains heating everything along its path. But we are lucky. Our summers may be hot but our nameless breezes, antidote to the heat, are a pleasure of life.
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