Wednesday Walk - Humor, street art and beautiful trees

A walk in our neighborhood is often uneventful. It's the same scenes we get to see over and over again but this is the only place where I can walk in peace. If I dare to get out of this place all I get to experience is the commotion, the pollution and the traffic of city life. Nonetheless, our city has changed colors it is painted in gold orange and red right now. The pinks have given way to the golds and reds. Except for the crepe myrtle which is usually in pink and purple all most all blooms are in yellow orange and red at the moment. I just had to brave the city traffic and get out to enjoy the beauty.

Finding animals on the road is a common experience even in the traffic snarled city roads. Nonetheless, scenes like these in the city are not just rare but humorous as well. As we (the hubs and I) drove out of our neighborhood we witnessed this scene which had us in splits. A goat had climbed the roof of a car to eat some leaves from a tree. The poor owner of the car would have had the shock of his life if he had witnessed this scene. The hubs and I had a good laugh as we pulled down the window and took some pictures of the crime scene.

As we left our neighborhood the traffic had already picked up, we usually get out of our home very early to avoid this madness. That day we had no choice but to start late as we had some errands to do. It was then I noticed the golden cascade/ cassia fistula tree in full bloom near a temple. It is also locally considered as the tree of prosperity. This tree usually blooms around the Tamil and Malayalam New years. It is used widely in the new year decorations.

The cassia fistula has long flowers hanging down like golden showers which waves about daintily in the wind. These trees shed their leaves before the first flowers show up. As the flowers bloom green leaves appear on the trees.

After we had done our errands we parked our car and took a walk in that neighborhood. Here we saw a number of Delonix regia trees. This is another stunning tree our city chooses to arch its roads with.

On one of the Rain trees nearby we saw a squirrel running up and down eating the flower buds. The fan like flowers, with fine tufts of pink fluff lay scattered all over the road and even the branches. The dried flowers hanging on to branches catching the filtered morning light looked really beautiful.

This little guy just wouldn't stand in one place and he was high up on the tree. Rain trees are huge with very gnarly trunks and branches.

One more image of him running around. The traffic below doesn't seem to trouble these little fellows any more. They are so used to the noise and the pollution I guess.

The gulmuhar or the Delonix regia is another of those wonderful trees I love to see. The tree itself is shaped like an umbrella and has lovely fern like leaves. It looks stunning even when its not in bloom, and when in bloom it is one of the eye catching sights you'll ever see.

This is also locally called the Mayflower as it blooms in the month of May. The flower is edible and has a slightly sweet and tangy taste. We used to eat them as kids.

There are some roads in the city which are lined with just these trees on either sides and in the months of April/May they paint the roads red. These flowers look like orchid blooms in a way.

After a long walk around the side avenues we decided to come back home on the way when we stopped at a traffic signal I took these images of art painted on the compound walls of government buildings. These were scenes from the freedom fight before India got her independence.

Most of these scenes portrayed well known freedom fighter and local heroes who fought valiantly against the British. I could get only a couple of these images as the traffic started to move. I hope to get more images soon, but then this is one of those places where you can hardly stand and stare, the traffic here on working days is crazy to say the least.

I hope you enjoyed this walk with me and the sights I tried to bring you. Tomorrow I hope to start early and go to another part of the city to get some more images of the golden cascade or golden shower trees. Thanks for your time and support.