Enthralling Trails

Mr Mohan Diwedi is unvarying about his morning walks. He is a senior citizen, he is tall and heftily built. He is a widower who misses the presence of a companion. The walk has been a ritual for him, it brings him close to the world that he aspires to be in. He begins his walk from Golden Tower located in Chinchwad and walks to the Ganapati Temple, which is located in the village of Chinchwad. The walk is almost 3 kilometres long. It leads him to the housing arenas, shopping hubs, and narrow lanes lined with houses that have blossoms of Jasmine, Rose and Hibiscus outside their homes. On returning he walks on to the opposite end where there is a children’s park, it has a walking track that runs along the boundary and a central green lawn. There are numerous flowering plants around and all along the walk. The unprecedented lockdown in the month of March 2020 owing to the pandemic brought in fear, anxiety and antipathy towards fellow human beings. The changes that set in made life

“I'm planting a tree to teach me to gather strength from my deepest roots.” ― Andrea Koehle  It seemed as if God was infuriated with us. The pandemicCOVID 19 had siphoned Mumbai and Pune and to add to the misery, cyclone Nisarga eyed Maharashtra as its choicest places to make its landfall. There was incessant rainfall for a day before the landfall. We enjoyed the tranquillity that followed a humid summer. The plants beamed with their sparkling leaves, and the flowers skipped, bounced and toyed in joy. The plants grew in large flower pots, they grew beyond their abilities and were the best but their growth was stifled. We felt we would transplant the plants that had grown beyond their means to survive in the flowerpots to a larger green expanse. The priority was for the Christmas plant which was more than three feet tall. My husband was fond of the plant. He said, ‘I will move it to the lawned area in our office’. The plants on the front side were mostly flowering. The