Just Tripping!: Roheda – The Dream in the Desert

Trees of Shekhawati - Part I - April 2019

Registan ki ek sachhai hai. Yahan bahut kuch chhupa huya hai. Jo hota hai woh dikhta nahin, jo dikhta hai woh hota nahin – Dhokha hai Dhokha hai duniya ka yeh karvaan - Abhay Deol's opening credits voice-over in the delightful neo-noir film 'Manorama Six Feet Under' (2007).

The first sight is of total incredulity.

Among the pruned Khejdi trees, stands this bedecked tree. It glows under the sun of topaz and sapphires. By the time you lift your jaw back, you have already passed it. You are not sure if you actually saw it.

Now you know how Abhay Deol felt when he sees Yana Gupta wearing ghaghra and choli, standing in the middle of the road under dark clouds, pouring water over her face. This is Rajasthan; you never know what you will get to see.

Roheda Magic!

Turning around, you arrive at the gates of a lavishly painted pink school. Luckily the gate is open. Walking excitedly over the tilled farmland and hoping not to twist that ankle again, you come face to face with the beauty. This is as real as Yana Gupta was Dhokha!

This is Dhokha for sure! No you won't see Yana Gupta drenching herself with water on the road

Rajasthan has a way of surprising you when you least expect it. And it is usually the sudden appearance of colour that surprises you. Whether it is the bright odhni of a woman in the middle of desert or these brightly painted havelis in these villages in the middle of nothingness. Colour imparts that lively dimension to the arid and scrubby landscape of Rajasthan.

The transient beauty and colour of Roheda trees was perhaps the inspiration for the rich Marwaris settled in Calcutta who then decided to lend some permanent colours to Shekhawati as they painted their havelis, now mostly in ruins, in bright colours. And now that you are thinking, was the gold paint of Sone ki Dukaan in Mahansar inspired by this Golden Shower of Topaz tree you are standing in front of now?

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Essentials

Roheda (Tecomella undulata) or Desert Teak. Other names are Barmer & Marwar Teak and Honey Tree. Roheda is a small deciduous tree with dark grey brown bark. It is native to dry and semi-arid areas and so far until the Shekhawati sojourn, you have not noticed Roheda trees in Delhi. The trees usually bloom by mid of March and peak in the last week of March and first week of April.
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You are in Shekhawati for the third time and this time you are here just for the trees. The painted havelis will be just incidental. You have seen the Khejdi trees in the past visits but you have a feeling there is more to the treescape here. And then you see Yana Gupta, er, this beauty by the road.

Roheda in bloom is a beautiful tree. The flowers take hues of orange, yellow and even red. For the next few days the trees will keep delighting you. You seem to have chosen the perfect time to see the blooming trees. The trees will appear by the roads, you will jump over rail lines to meet them and sometimes climb dunes to find this solitary tree blooming in all its splendour.

And each time, you will spend some extra minutes walking around the tree, taking in the beauty of its magnificent trumpet flowers. Every now and then flowers will float down spreading colour on the ground too. You will pick some flowers; their delicate petals tender to the touch of your palms. The colour and the softness of the flowers seem to provide a fleeting succour to the hardship of the land. It is probably for this reason, that Roheda is the State Flower of Rajasthan.

Let’s spend few moments with the Roheda trees and get awed!

Is it a Dream?

No - This is real!

The majestic trumpet shaped Roheda blooms (Tecomella unduluta)

A Handful of yellow Roheda flowers

Roheda blooms in Shekhawati Rajasthan

Roheda tree among Khejdi and Acacia trees

Tecomella unduluta

Dried Roheda Flowers

Bignonia undulata R., watercolour on paper - Watercolour illustration commissioned by William Roxburgh (late 18th century)

Allgemeines teutsches Garten-Magazin [Gartenmagazin], vol. 6 (1809)

Tecomella undulata (Sm.) Seemann [as Tecoma undulata (Sm.) G. Don]

K.R. Kirtikar, B.D. Basu, Indian medicinal plants, Plates, vol. 4: t. 701, fig. B (1918)

Tecomella undulata (Sm.) Seemann [as Foliage and Flowers of an Indian Tree]

M. North, Paintings, t. 233 () [M. North]

A Handful of red Roheda flowers

"There is a saying or 'Kahavat', in part of Rajasthan - rudo rupalo roheda ko phool - रूड़ो रूपालो रोहेड़ा को फूल - for someone who is beautiful but has no other quality! Specially used for pointing out the women who are beautiful but has no sense or maturity or skills"...

Courtesy Jaishree Khamesra

The narrow wavy margined leaves are shed in January and renewed in mid February

The dark trunk of a Roheda tree

Roheda wood is almost as good as Sheesham though it costs much less. All furniture and the ornate doors and windows you see in the Shekhawati havelis are made from Roheda timber

Roheda trees are everywhere - by the rail tracks, by the roads, on dunes, in fields

This tree by the road stands within the compound of a house owned by a retired Jat BSF cop, who is a farmer now, and whose family invited us in and served us tea. The lady of the house says this is a female tree and is called Rohedi locally. Their dog however was not so pleased with the gatecrashng visitors and kept barking throughout our stay!

Roheda Hanami

The youngest Roheda tree you saw

Roheda flowers are as beautiful as Palash flowers. All they need now is someone like Rabindranath Tagore to romanticize them and make them popular so that they too are celebrated in folklore

All during the trip, the Roheda trees never stopped awe-and-inspiring you. You would stop the car every time, hang around with the trees, marvelling at the beauty of the flowers in this unforgiving land