The receding colours of spring

This is in a way Part II of my Nature series, if you will. As spring gives way to searing summer—Delhi is already 35 degrees Celsius—the flowers are drooping into slumber, as if to wake up only when the wind turns softly congenial and the thundering showers inevitable in a few months give way to gently falling dew.

The petunias are putting up a good fight, but they are bound to succumb soon. Only the occasional rugged rose and marigolds will hold their ground. The delicate ones will bloom in the hills or in protected nurseries and homes, not out in the unsparing open.

My infrequent walks will give my eyes less to feast upon. Maybe I’ll have to look heavenward more often, for trees that had gone bare are beginning to sport tender greenery.
As I worked with my phone camera to catch the receding spring, it struck me that we have very few blue flowers, at least in Delhi, from the little I've managed to see of it this season.

Among the flowers that dot public parks and gated colonies, there are many shades of pink, red, mauve, purple and yellow, even dull and bright whites, but very few of the blue variety. Here are a few pictures that I clicked when the city was alive with blooms of all colours and shapes.