JUST OPPOSITE my hotel is the building below, framed as you can see, by coconut palms. Just seconds before and not pictured here is the guy who scales these trees for ripe coconuts. He takes a good look around to see if the fruits are ripe, then shimmies up the trunk to pick the nuts and throw them in his back sack. You might have met Innomedia before, wrote about the company in the INQster last year.
And at the t-junction there’s a tree ablaze with red blossoms. This, we’re pretty sure, is a Tamarind tree – the flowers give way to pods, each containing three or four seeds which are used in cooking. Tamarind tastes an awful lot like lemon.
Bengaluru is full of trees, many of them blossoming. Those, and the fact we’re 3,000 feet above sea level, make the place pretty tolerable. And also means the air is alive with birds and wonderful butterflies. Let’s hope the town authorities remember that while concrete is OK, the trees are the lungs of the highly congested city. ♥
