Opened the newspaper on a Sunday morning and my eyes swivelled to a tiny pixelated picture of a burst of purple blossoms lining a languorous avenue. It was an article about tourists flocking to South Africa to feast their eyes on the Jacaranda blooms that brighten up the Pretorian springtime. The ethereal purple invasion of Jacaranda reminds me of Scarlet O'Hara and Rhett Butler, a meld of heavenly and rakish feelings. It exudes a kind of royal mystique, like Princess Diana! And to think that I didn't have to travel very far to experience that heady rush makes me happy, in a puerile way!
I spotted my scenes of purple heaven in Ooty. One minute we were swerving on the curvaceous hill roads thinking, "Let the next stretch be straight, please God," and the next, we were blinded by the magnificent purple blooms. A veil of something magical made us oblivious of the fact that we were hurtling down a merciless path that was testing our ability to keep the contents of the stomach down. We were gliding like a leaf caught in a draught of wind...until the next hairpin bend cut into our dream!
Come March-April and the Jacaranda trees dotting the Nilgiri (literally translating into 'Blue mountain') are crowned in purple. You could tweak things a bit, call purple a shade of blue (Nila(m) - Meaning blue in Hindi and Tamil) and marvel at how becoming the whole situation is. These miniscule exemplars of our answer to the Japanese sakura or the American cherry blossoms, stand out against the expanse of Ootacamund green, like David did in front of Goliath!
Now where am I going with these rambling thoughts? Nowhere!
And that's exactly where we were going when we four friends took off on a girls only mini holiday to Ooty! We got there and what did we want to do? Nothing much. What did we want to see? Nothing really.
So we lazed. We ate and then we walked off what we ate. We walked on with no apparent destination, singing loudly on the quiet bylanes of the town. When the caretaker of the homestay insisted that we must behave like tourists, we obliged and went on a particularly languid sightseeing tour of a tea factory, rose garden and a few other gardens. But we were more excited about finding the Kerala restaurant that served fish fry for lunch! And that's when we found our Jacaranda.
The chilled holiday got a perk of excitement with the sight of the purple milestones plotting our journey. Like the crunch of the cookie in a dollop of cookies and cream. We giggled like schoolgirls at the beautiful sight and the taxi driver added to the excitement by swerving just a wee bit more than necessary at the curves. That is when our purposeless holiday took on a new colour. And that is the purpose of this blog! Jacaranda musings.
I spotted my scenes of purple heaven in Ooty. One minute we were swerving on the curvaceous hill roads thinking, "Let the next stretch be straight, please God," and the next, we were blinded by the magnificent purple blooms. A veil of something magical made us oblivious of the fact that we were hurtling down a merciless path that was testing our ability to keep the contents of the stomach down. We were gliding like a leaf caught in a draught of wind...until the next hairpin bend cut into our dream!
Come March-April and the Jacaranda trees dotting the Nilgiri (literally translating into 'Blue mountain') are crowned in purple. You could tweak things a bit, call purple a shade of blue (Nila(m) - Meaning blue in Hindi and Tamil) and marvel at how becoming the whole situation is. These miniscule exemplars of our answer to the Japanese sakura or the American cherry blossoms, stand out against the expanse of Ootacamund green, like David did in front of Goliath!
Now where am I going with these rambling thoughts? Nowhere!
And that's exactly where we were going when we four friends took off on a girls only mini holiday to Ooty! We got there and what did we want to do? Nothing much. What did we want to see? Nothing really.
So we lazed. We ate and then we walked off what we ate. We walked on with no apparent destination, singing loudly on the quiet bylanes of the town. When the caretaker of the homestay insisted that we must behave like tourists, we obliged and went on a particularly languid sightseeing tour of a tea factory, rose garden and a few other gardens. But we were more excited about finding the Kerala restaurant that served fish fry for lunch! And that's when we found our Jacaranda.
The chilled holiday got a perk of excitement with the sight of the purple milestones plotting our journey. Like the crunch of the cookie in a dollop of cookies and cream. We giggled like schoolgirls at the beautiful sight and the taxi driver added to the excitement by swerving just a wee bit more than necessary at the curves. That is when our purposeless holiday took on a new colour. And that is the purpose of this blog! Jacaranda musings.
