Before you read further let me warn you that people staying in the close vicinity of trees and flowers and blah blah blah should probably skip this blog. I would not want you all to waste your precious 5-10 min and end up shrugging your shoulders and giving a “Big Deal” cry at the end of it. But the nature lovers feeling like misfits in the concrete jungle may choose to go on. Anyways, I guess enough of the disclaimer.
On the busiest roads, with sparse greenery and suffocating pollution I got the first pleasant surprise of the day. Fluttering in a random motion was a beautiful yellow butterfly looking truly lost (or so I thought). There was not a shrub to hide or flower to rest on, so it decided to ride a nearby autorickshaw briefly. Of course it did not opt for the usual riding seats. And just like that it was lost in the commotion. My bus chugged ahead, but my thoughts still dwelled on the strange visitor. The polluted stretch was followed by not so polluted stretch. And there amongst the potted plants of a roadside building, another specimen of this lovely species greeted me. But this one was brownish in colour, designs if any were not that identifiable. I couldn’t believe my luck. Two butterflies in a day? Could there be more? I was on high alert now. I looked at every stretch of grass or shrubs that had grown. Somebody twittered recently about the incessant rains in Mumbai, “If nobody lived here, it would probably be a thick jungle”. So true. Isolated plants seemed to have sprouted at quite a few places. Shrubs left to survive along the divider on the highway were swaying in the slight breeze. And there I spotted a black one with yellow dots on it hopping towards the shelter.
I probably would have ended up seeing more but I was close to my destination. With the almost concluded rains, I am sure to catch some more visitors to this wonderland : "You are more than welcome, dear."
