At Sunder Nursery in Central Delhi, a woman is walking beneath the flowering frangipani trees. Her braid is threaded with two white frangipani blooms, one above the other (see photo). This was another season, but the frangipani at Sunder Nursery has the useful habit of blooming throughout the year. On this September afternoon, a second woman here also has a frangipani in her hair, except that hers is a large white clip shaped almost exactly like the flower. Indeed, Delhiwale wearing such a frangipani clip have been sighted across the city.
Frangipanis bloom profusely in the rains and are thus impossible to miss across the capital these days. At Sunder Nursery, the frangipanis line the parallel trails facing the Sunder Burj monument. The park’s frangipani trees are dotted with white. Scores of fallen frangipani flowers litter the grass. The park staff intentionally leave them on the ground for most of the day because, they say, the fallen flowers look beautiful there. True. Now look up and you will see that the white frangipani clusters are as beautifully set against green leaves. Look higher and you will see kites and crows circling in the cloudy Delhi sky. Beneath one tree stands an information board misspelling the frangipani as “Firangipani,” the extra “i” turning a part of the name into “firangi,” the old slang for a foreigner.
Strongly scented, the frangipani is a familiar Delhi citizen. For some Delhiwale, frangipani flowers are a livelihood. For many years at the Barakhamba traffic light, a woman has been hawking frangipani gajras from late evening until late at night. When the light is red, she walks slowly from one car window to the next. As soon as it turns green, she hurries back to the road divider, unsold gajras looped over an arm.
{{/usCountry}}Strongly scented, the frangipani is a familiar Delhi citizen. For some Delhiwale, frangipani flowers are a livelihood. For many years at the Barakhamba traffic light, a woman has been hawking frangipani gajras from late evening until late at night. When the light is red, she walks slowly from one car window to the next. As soon as it turns green, she hurries back to the road divider, unsold gajras looped over an arm.
{{/usCountry}}Miles away in South Delhi, Saket’s Select Citywalk mall is full of things for sale, but its many frangipanis are not among them. The trees stand along outdoor paths and in a garden-like space in the plaza. They are currently covered with white flowers. At this moment, a woman in a long printed dress is standing under a frangipani tree as a black car passes in front of her. Three men have stopped beneath another frangipani to talk; not one of them is looking up at the flowers. Under one frangipani canopy, an advertisement announces bookings for trips to Mount Kailash. Steps away, a flowering frangipani is towering beside a hoarding for a puppy adoption camp.
On another afternoon in Sunder Nursery, a man in a white shirt is seen holding a frangipani flower that, he says, he picked up moments ago from the grass. He is holding it lightly by the stem, its five petals facing outwards. See right photo.
PS: Can you tell what name has appeared in this dispatch 20 times?
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