GREEN WHISPERER

Nothing else to do; most of the day, I frown at the notes to be edited, winking on the computer screen or disapproving myself over the versions of my older photographs, cursing how I should have handled them better. I tell myself what a stupid way of spending time – the miserable stress because of never-ending days holed up indoors. It’s about the second installment of punishment, of self-isolation, shoved by the double mutant Coronavirus.

However, I keep to my dogged discipline. While in my morning walking regime, a thirty minutes affair on my second-floor foyer and it happens impulsively, my gaze tips sideways at the green canopy open to the sky. I find the greenery sipping the wholesome sprays of warmth. As I tramp up and down bathed in morning bursts of sun sweat oozing and running down my limbs; and I find I can’t keep my eyes off from sprouting fresh stalks and tiny shy leaves fluttering in the waves of breeze.

This mischievous dancing foliage that appears in early summer presents itself in a cocktail of green hues: a mix of faint greenish, yellowish translucence like a film floating in the summer air. Relishing the stroll, I skirt around, and I briefly get distracted. For a moment, I imagine setting up my camera close to the stalks. I know it’s merely a play of fanciful urge. I stare as if greedy and ready to pamper them lest they might fade soon before I ferry my gadgets.

Later for two hours, suffocating in sweat-drenched casuals, I move around with my camera set in a close-up mode, convincing the infantile leaves and stalks to strike a pose for me. Indeed, they have daintily obliged!