Heavens are Blue
Heavens are blue proclaiming to you.
The Glory of God Thy creator
Sunset or night there are beautiful sights
Yes they show forth the glory of God.
Little did I know that this prayer song sung in my school assembly in unison, without much thought provocation will unfold before my eyes one day.
Here is how it happened…
For my daily drab routine of picking up my kids from their bus stop, the only saviour was their excitement to blabber out any new found wisdom they had gathered from the school that day. It was in 2003 I think, my elder one was in his fourth grade , when one fine day he just jumped from the bus and came up with this one… “Ma the Neelgiri mountains (western Ghats) are so called as a blue (neel in hindi) flower blooms there every twelve years. This eeny weeny bit of knowledge did not die a slow death as I kept sharing this with my school students too.
Then in the year 2015 there was an exhibition in school, wherein we were assigned the southern states to elaborate upon. Help dropped in the form of some travel magazines from my friend Bharti who I can say, is in herslf an encyclopedia personified. In a way it was she who watered the seed sown by my son. For the first time I saw the pictures of this blue flower which goes by the name 'Neelakurinji’.
From the heading to the footnotes all the information was devoured and Voila! In the tourism pavilion the students were parroting out… “Please mark your calendars for 2018 and visit Munnar to experience the mass flowering of the Neelakurinji”.
Next, as destiny would have it, in July 2018 Rajesh chanced upon this article in an inflight magazine and popped up the question.. “Do you want to see this?”
What more could I ask for. 'Andha kya maange , do aankhe' ( literally translated to what can a blind man ask for but two eyes).
So here I am in Eravikulam National Park Munnar savouring the blue heavens which have descended on earth. Scattered all over the hills these flowers swaying and as if singing out to all.
Alas! Wordsworth did not chance upon them but the daffodils. But no words lesser than his poem can be an apt tribute to this blue miracle on earth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.– William Wordsworth (1815)
Manik andParas, we missed you but there will always be a 2030 for all of us.
