I love these flowers. Bright and red and somehow so very reminiscent of vacations :)
Living in a place like Delhi (a haven of corporate opportunity but a soul yearning for greenery tends to starve here), I consider myself lucky to have two huge balconies, albeit their size is more in their length rather than width. Anyway, the point is that I manage to have my piece of garden in these balconies. There are occasional flowers too, and among them is my hibiscus. I watch the green leaves shaded here and there with white and think how pretty they are, and I pretend that the leaves are pretty enough and that I am not waiting for the flowers but the truth is that the rare flower that does bloom lights up my day and sets my heart aglow.
Just today there was a huge red flower fresh and plump nodding its head lightly in the breeze. The long pollen stem quivering delicately. Oh how lovely!
I spot a few buds too and am reassured that this splendour will repeat itself and soon.
Then I wonder again as I had a month ago while travelling to Sikkim.
We landed at the airport and were being driven to the resort, on the way I saw a bush with flames of red and thought this looks like hibiscus but our cab whizzed past and I couldn’t confirm.
It happened again, this time at a slower pace and sure enough, it was hibiscus. Hibiscus - wild and free, fecund and abundant. Hibiscus - all over the bush and bushes all over the place!
I couldn't believe it, I was drowning in their beauty... it went on for a while... and then I wondered...
What is more beautiful to me, what gives me more pleasure - these hordes of red bursts or the single or sometimes twin flowers that bloom in my garden?
I think the flower that blooms in my own garden is in every way equal to the beauty of all those hundreds of flowers put together.
Is it because one epitomizes the beauty of the rest and the delicate details offer as much visual delight as that of the vivid colour of the sheer numbers or is it because it is mine and has bloomed after so much care and wait.
That I don’t know but I do know that my single flower is as beautiful to me if not more.
