Fall season in two different worlds

Brajesh Bhatia

I live in a suburb of the sprawling US city of Houston. It used to be an extremely dry city until the early 1980s. There were practically no lakes or ponds, except some bayous (something like 'ganda nullahs' in India) in and around the populated areas. Then the city development authorities decided in the 1980s to accord concessions to developers providing artificial lakes, ponds and canals within their planned communities. Now when your airplane comes to land at Bush Intercontinental or Hobby airport, you can notice almost every suburb has a lake of its own and Houston almost looks like a city of lakes.

My house is also located near the lake which is almost one mile long and a quarter mile wide almost in a U-shape.  The main approach roads to the houses are all around the lake.  There is a six-foot wide walkway around the lake for people to take a stroll, jog around or run. Trees, flowers and fauna of all kind are planted parallel to the walkway in the grassy patch between the road and the lake.  

The other day, while I was on my morning walk, I noticed the fall season for the first time.  What a beautiful sight!  I had noticed the changing color scheme of trees a few days earlier, indicating the advent of the fall season.  However, this morning was a special one.   The night before the trees had shed their leaves for the first time in all kinds of hues and colours from light yellow to deep brown due to the heavy wind that had blown the whole night and now the leaves were all spread on the grassy lawns where the grass had also just started turning yellowish.  It was a beautiful sight as if someone had spread a thick Persian carpet with incredible designs and colours.  

While I was admiring the scene, my mind took me to another city in another part of the globe some 40 years ago.  It was perhaps February-March of 1975 when we were living in Singapore.  The city was far from being developed as one sees it now.  The Singapore Government had invited a few landscaping specialists from the Horticulture Division of the Central Public Works Department, Government of India, under the Commonwealth Exchange Programme to plan highways , landscaping of the areas around  and the choice of trees to be planted alongside the roads.  

The team from India had done a wonderful job.  They had also planted two Gulmohar trees just outside the residence of the Prime Minister.  Those who have lived in Delhi or some other city in northern India must have admired the beauty of Gulmohar trees' red flowers.  The bright red flowers look so marvellous on the trees and after a few weeks they suddenly shed their red flowers and fill the streets spreading a red carpet - another beautiful sight.

This is exactly what had happened that day in the late Lee Kuan Yew's  Singapore, where each lamp post then used to carry a sign, “Littering is an offence, penalty $500”.  The Gulmohar trees outside the Prime Minister's residence had shed their red flowers, without any warning, and lay spread like a red carpet on the road.   The Prime Minister noticed this, as his motorcade passed the mess and was furious as to who had contravened the law.  Obviously, the trees could not be charged in a court of law and fined $500 as per the signs posted. The trees were ordered to be cut and the Gulmohars disappeared from Singapore.