Delhiwale: Spring is the thing with… semal!

The semal blossom returns to Delhi, marking the brief spring with vibrant red flowers, a sight celebrated across the city’s parks and streets.

To be a flower is a profound responsibility. The cyclic return to bloom gives our unstable world a sense of consoling predictability. It is thus a relief to break the news that the semal blossom is back. A pulpy red semal flower was sighted on Friday evening. It lay fallen under a Khan Market semal.

The semal tree beside the ITO crossing is glowing in a festive bloom. (HT Photo)

And this unusually warm Sunday noon, the semal tree beside the ITO crossing is glowing in a festive bloom. See right photo. As if some happy soul had flung holi’s laal gulal up in the sunny air.

Semal’s blossoming marks Delhi’s super-brief spring. It is among the city’s 252 tree species (bechara New York has only 130). Most of the year, the tree is like any leafy tree, though distinguished by its tiered branches shooting out from the trunk like the ribs of an umbrella.

However, by late February onwards, this ordinary face in the crowd becomes as conspicuous as grade A celebrity.

Semal flower sighting is an easy sport. Just look out for colour red! The capital’s diplomatic avenues are full of this tree, especially Neeti Marg.

Two semals stand at the Scindia House area in Connaught Place, where the bored security guards manning the gates of office complexes frequently decorate their cabins with semal’s fleshy blossoms.

An unusually austere semal stands at Gurugram’s Dividing Road. The tree is short, and produces few flowers. In a teasing contrast, three gigantic semals at Mathura Road’s Subz Burj monument roundabout burst out with flowers in such abundance that the monument’s green lawn gets thickly carpeted in red.

Meanwhile, the tall lanky semal standing by the 16th century Khairul Manazil mosque, opposite Delhi Zoo, is still to turn wholly red. Though this noon, a dog walker in red is compensating for the colour. See other photo.

Then there’s a tiny public park in Hazrat Nizamuddin West.

One could compose a ballad on the park’s three incredible luscious semal trees.

Last March, like the years before, every inch of the ground was covered with semal flowers. At night, the ground would literally glow as if on fire. Months later, the biggest of the semal tree fell. As it fell, it also brought down the other two semals.

This will be the park’s first spring without semal’s red flowers.