The day is pleasant. There was a bit of sun in the morning but by noon clouds have started to creep in. They weren’t the threatening type but portended a shower in the later part of the day. I switch on the TV after lunch and after a quick browse through the channels, I come across a Program named Living Free with Kimi Werner. She meets and documents the lives of extraordinary people who have given up the cities and found their homes in the heart of the nature ‘the wild’. This time she was meeting with Jill Redwoods of East Gippsland, Australia who has been living alone for nearly 40 years in a home she has built on a 15-acre property, an hour away from the population, on the edge of a forest. She is self sufficient with her own livestock, fruit orchard and a vegetable garden.

I do not aspire for a hermitage as that of Jill Redwoods’ but home for me is one that is surrounded by greenery. It should have enough space to satisfy my green thumb. I dream of an eco-friendly home which is run resourcefully with as less damage to the environment as possible. I always feel like a fish out of water if I have to stay long hours between closed walls without even a sight of a tree. At least a few times a day I have to go out and feel the plants and breathe in their scent.

We live on the first floor of an independent house that has a balcony running around it and a portico in the front. I have around fifty potted plants and few others planted in the built-in containers over the railings. We do not have a yard, front or back but there is a park adjoining our house and exactly 10 to 15 feet away from the corner of my bedroom are two huge Peltophorum pterocarpum trees. My west and northern windows open to the sight of these trees. During the monsoons a sweet heady fragrance emanate from the flowers. When there is a strong wind the leaves rustle and there is a rain of flowers and dried leaves. The yellow flowers settle down around the tree like a beautiful carpet. Unfortunately the whole of the right branch has been cut off causing me a lot of grief. It was on those sub-branches that I witnessed a lot of lovey-dovey avian couples. Now my window opens on to the drab site of my neighbours’ utility areas where I see them doing their laundry or dishes. Hmm

Roufous Tree Pies on Peltophorum pterocarpum

Our neighbours on the west have a backyard which is as good as ours, because I can touch the trees from the balcony, the trees including mango, guava, pomegranate, sapodilla(chikoo), neem, magnolia champaka(Simhachalam Sampangi), Nyctanthes arbor-tristis (Night-flowering Jasmine) or parijath and curry trees. It looks like a mini forest from where I see. Also there is a walker’s park adjoining the house opposite ours and it is lined with Millingtonia hortensis (Indian cork tree) and also two African tulips that are a favorite with the parrots. All these trees provide home and food for various avian (birds), lepidopteran (butterflies and moths), and odonate(dragon flies) population.