Fiery flowers

         

In the mountains, each new day brought a new joy and a new song on my lips. The dire trepidation and tribulation of the day past were fast forgotten. There was a spring and dance in my steps as I ran around the orchard plucking an apple here and a peach there. The Early June variety of crisp green apples was my favorite. Green apple tree was right in front of the porch and was most visible from the windows and also from the front veranda. I loved it when it was fully covered with its delicate pale pink blossoms with not a leaf to break the monopoly of the gorgeous pink splendor. After spreading splendor for a while the flowers shed their pink petals and metamorphosed to baby apples which grew into big crisp ones that I relished. I loved it when the green hesitantly crept in as tender new leaves and then little by little completely took over from the pale pink blossoms.

I yanked a huge bite from the apple I had just plucked and fully savored its tingling sour taste. Enjoying my apple, I reached our English landlord’s house in the neighboring Sunset View Estate. The tall statuesque octogenarian English lady stood in the porch wearing a beige floral-print knee length frock and an amused smile. She welcomed me and asked me, “How do you do?” I did not know the appropriate rejoinder so I responded with my gay gummy smile. Everybody called the old English lady Mummy. Mummy called me in. Before entering, I discreetly discarded the core of the apple I was eating, in the open ground. Mummy offered me freshly baked cookies. I knew from experience that they were marvelous so I quickly grabbed as many as I could in both my hands. Mummy indulgently laughed at my greediness. I wasn’t discouraged by her laugh. I knew Mummy liked me because there were hardly any children around except for the smelly dirty ones of the village who did not dare to enter an Englishman’s estate. Without saying thanks because I had not yet learnt these graces and etiquette, I walked away with still warm biscuits.

            On my way out, I observed gloriously gorgeous orange spikes resembling a fully ripe corn cob. These were flowers of a Yucca like cactus. Yucca bore sedate white flowers but these were dazzling orange. I wanted these orange spikes and was mulling over how to reach them without getting hurt from the scary sharp thorns guarding them. Tika uncle, Mummy’s only surviving son, was observing my contemplation from far. I thought Mummy could not have named him Tika but everybody called him Tika Saheb. I found out from the local helpers that he was called Tika because he was the crown prince and would be coroneted by applying a Tika on his forehead. So while he was waiting to be coroneted they called him Tika Saheb. I never did find out his real name. I may have heard Mummy call him by his proper English name but I may not have understood. I saw him taking long strides using his height optimally and coming towards me. He strictly warned me that even touching these fiery orange flowers caused severe itching. But what were a warning or two when the appeal was so great. Cleverly I postponed plucking them while Tika uncle was with me.

            My keenness to get those flowers did not allow much time to elapse before I came back braced with a stronger resolve albeit without a plan. The flowers were at a great height and their stems were as thick and strong as bamboos. The thorny leaves spread all around a single spike of flowers. I observed all these foreboding arrangements nature had designed to keep the precious flowers secure but in my unwise alacrity I failed to gauge the scope of risk. As I leapt towards the thick stem multiple thorns scratched and gashed my eager tender arms and legs. The instantaneous immeasurable itching and burning sensations immobilized me. I fell down and lay there writhing in pain. My brain was incapacitated by intense insufferable pain. I had never before experienced such severe discomfort. I thought I would die then and there. Tika uncle, though grown up in years, had a child’s brain, so he could precisely predict what I would do. Having construed correctly, he came to my rescue, really quick. He found me on the ground, contorting in agony and wailing loudly. He picked me up and carried me home. Amma  was aghast to see my skin so badly bruised. She was in tears empathizing with me. Tika uncle fetched some ointment. The local help knew about the herbs – antidotes which could provide relief. Under the supervision of maanji, Tika uncle and the house help amma cleaned my wounds and carefully checked to see if any vicious thorns were lodged in my skin. The prolonged cleaning process, administering the ointment and also the local herbs prolonged my torture and I cried loudly throughout. The crescendo of wailing was high because I was surrounded by sympathizers. Extreme pain and loud crying caused extreme exhaustion and made me groggy. Amma gently put me in my bed and let me sleep. Sleep as well as the medicines repaired my injuries to a great extent. Body’s repair system worked exceedingly efficiently in the wondrous childhood. Next morning, I sprang up to near normalcy, much wiser about the dangerously deceptive beauty of the flame colored flowers arranged in a spike. I had learnt a lesson for life that these orange flowers were to be admired only from far. In future, I would never fail to share this wisdom with others whenever I would see these bewitching flowers.