Just Tripping!: An Evening in Lodhi Garden

LodhiGardenisthan - Jaaney Kya Dikh Jaaye

Spring 2021

There is not an outing here ever that has been less than exhilarating in the last so many years. Pick any season, any time of the day and you will not want to leave. The cocktail of ingredients that are unique to this park is what that makes each visit this heady.

An impomptu live jig with a young admirer - moments that are only experienced in Lodhi Garden

Now that you wonder about your pre-Lodhi Garden days. Yes, those days it was Nehru Park, Teen Murti and other nearby roundabouts or India Gate lawns. You are not sure if you knew Lodhi Garden existed then. You would come to Lodhi Colony sporadically to visit school friends and now that your recall you came to Lodhi Road to appear for 12th boards and some entrance exams in the many schools here. But you are sure you never visited Lodhi Garden – no not even during some school picnic. School picnics usually happened in Nehru Park, Safdurjung Tomb and the Zoo.

In the intervening time, you learnt that it was here that Khushwant Singh took his walks and provided his own interpretation to the shape of Bada Gumbad’s dome and based his book ‘The Sunset Club’ on three friends who met here every evening. You also learnt that it was on these walking tracks that the swish set and power set jogged plotting and gossiping.

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Bihu kab hai; kab hai Bihu

You remember first meeting the tree in the Bihu month in Dhemaji, Assam. It was a breezy afternoon and the yellow flowers came down in waves. But you don’t remember smelling the flowers. You were not really sure if you would see the tree in Delhi and if it would flower at all in the heat. Also, since the tree looks like an emaciated peepal in Delhi, the chances were’nt good.

Gamhar (Gmelina arborea), Lodhi Garden, New Delhi

A woman is getting herself clicked in her pregnant state. Not sure what this shoot is called. And then you see these yellow flowers. Delhi is full of yellow flowers these days so it is easy to overlook. You pick the flowers. Yes, the leaves look peepal like but are velvety. You have evolved as a botanist. And this time you smell the flowers. You have struck a motherlode. The flowers are drenched in this fruity spicy scent which could easily make it the most fragrant flowering tree.

The Midspring Night Dream

There should be an olfactory equivalent word for Hanami. While some flowers make for breathless beauty, some flowers make for breathtaking fragrance. Until now to you Sugandhraj was like the top IPL pick but who never performed. The shrub like trees here had few flowers now and then and never smelled that great. The plant at home is still indifferent and refuses to flower.

All will change within few minutes. Above the pungent smell of gardening water there is unmistakable smell that is pure delicious. The shrubs are loaded with velvety white blooms and when you pull a branch to smell a flower, you could just swoon and die. Maybe it is the perfect evening time of a mid-spring day, water and humidity on the ground and the air turning cool that brings out the best in the flowers. So, for the next hour as the sun sets and blue hour approaches you will hover around the shrubs, and intermittently inhaling the sweet scent and for those few moments reminding yourself that being alive right now is the sweetest gift.

Sugandhraj or Gardenia jasminoides, Lodhi Garden, New Delhi

Night is approaching, notes of the musician playing flute in the Sheesh Gumbad billow across the grounds, bats screech on the Arjun tree, a guy has started to chat up these two girls (very smooth), the walkers on their last round are checking on their fitbits, the guards are blowing their whistles. First the scented Gumhar and now the Gandhraj. Back home, the Raat ki Rani has scented the porch. The gardenia stays flowerless.

Sometimes all you need is some Ducking Around

Sometimes you do catch a break. Lodhi Garden closes at 11 am and most gates have been locked up leaving you looking for an exit when you catch a looming white cloud appearing over the grassy knolls. There is the familiar excited quacks resounding among the trees.

Athpula Geese, Lodhi Gardens, New Delhi

The geese or ducks like you like to call them are on a foraging expedition in the grass. You are not really sure what they are picking up but it seems there is plenty of food in the grass as they noisily make their way towards you where you have sank over the grass to catch these incredible views.

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The Red-Naped Ibis is making appearances all over New Delhi these days

The newly conserved octagonal Sikandar Lodhi Tomb

A dry tree trunk sculpted into Mother and Child against the backdrop of Indian Coral Tree blooms

You discovered Lodhi Garden about seven years ago when you were on a mission to explore Delhi’s little-known monuments. And you instantly fell in love with it. First few years it was about clicking the monuments in different light and seasons. And then you discovered the joy of tree watching. So now it is discovering the tree treasure in their flowering seasons.

Sometimes you come here just for the vibe, for people watching and sometimes just to soak in the atmosphere as the sun goes down, shadows lengthen, and this hush descending with the mist on winter evenings. On other evenings, starlings dance designs in the sky, the fruitbats screech high up there in Arjun branches and the Chudail Papdi tree lurks in the shadows.