Our golden shower tree
K S S Pillai
The golden shower tree (Cassia fistula) is considered auspicious. Most of my neighbours have one in their compound. Our housing society bears a festive look in April every year, thanks to the profusion of yellow flowers on these trees.
We too have one in front of our house that faces the rising sun. When the house was constructed, the architect had insisted that it should face the east, and the astrologer had advised planting the golden shower tree where it stands today. After years, it has become a full-grown tree.
As its thick foliage acts as a live curtain for most of the year, I am deprived of a clear view of the housing colony across the paddy field in front of our house and its temple with a red flag fluttering over it. It is only during the period between the shedding of leaves and full blooming that I see children playing on the terrace of distant flats, women hanging clothes on cloth-lines, flocks of birds hurrying home in battle formation before the sun takes its dip in the sea and kites flying in circles high above in the sky, their sharp eyes looking for unwary preys while there is still some light to hunt.
When the night sky is clear, I can see from my bedroom even the infant moon and twinkling stars playing hide and seek among the slowly drifting clouds. Early in the morning, the ruckus made by the birds on the tree beats the alarm clock and wakes me up.
The tree has a strong connection with the festival of Vishu that comes on the first day of Malayalam new year, which falls of April 14. The elders hand over cash and other gifts to other members of the family and the servants on that day. We, as children, used to look forward to this day, visit our relatives in the village, and compare the sum of money we got.
As a bunch of its flowers is an essential part of Vishukkani, the first sight of auspicious things early in the morning of Vishu, we had been searching its bare branches for signs of emerging flowers only a few days ago. It flowers only once a year and is in full bloom now. The whole tree, like a fully decked bride, is laden with long, grape-like bunches of golden yellow flowers. Since golden jackals, supposed to feed on the fruits and disperse the seeds, are non-existent in our area, most of the last season’s dark-brown seed-pods are still dangling from the branches like those under an evil spell waiting for their deliverance.
The flowering season is a festive period for several birds, insects, and small animals that descend on the tree. Honey bees, butterflies of all hues and sizes, hornets, and beetles flutter from flower to flower, sucking pristine honey. Of them, bees and butterflies repay their debt immediately by acting as agents of pollination. Sparrows hop from branch to branch, nibbling at the tender petals, chirping all the while with gay abandon.
A couple of bulbuls, after having their fill, fly away from the tree and, sitting close to each other on the cable above the street, whisper sweet nothings to each other, away from the prying ears. A chameleon perched on a high branch changes its colour and looks furtively at fellow-creatures to see whether they are impressed by its unique feat. Squirrels suddenly start chasing one another, startling the other visitors. Black ants hurry along the branches in both directions on their tiny legs and turn back without a pause when they reach the end as if their mission was only to go up to that spot and return.
As the sun gets ready to call it a day, birds start leaving for their nests on other sprawling trees nearby, only to return to the golden shower tree the next morning.
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to The Kashmir Vision, he can be contacted at: [email protected])
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