HARLEQUIN

While the Occident enjoys a chilly spring, the Indian summer is surely and steadily grounding itself in the city. It’s only March, one shudders to think what May will be like. But we are used to the vagaries of the weather and complaints are not really complaints, but observations more like.

On this bright, sunny morning, with a warm loo doing the rounds, we were bringing ourselves to work. Do note, ‘bringing ourselves’, we didn’t wish to come to work. Afflicted with the ennui that long days impart.

On this stretch of green, greenish, decaying green, brown, dry foliage, three chameleons hung from vines, staring into nothingness. The shrubbery had seen better days, and will perhaps see many more when the monsoons surge, but for now, it was dusty and grimy with the blessings of exhaust from vehicular traffic and the infamous fine, refined dust that is so much a part of this city

The largest of the chameleons with an elongated bulbous head and fine thorns on its crown glided onto an empty orange box. As we know all too well, city folk, by and large, do not respect the environment. The streets are a never-ending, capaciously humungous garbage bin where we are concerned.

Its head took on a gorgeous orange hue complete with two ink-blue patches on its jowls. Its thick torso and flexible tail, not orange but brownish grey, completing the balancing act to perfection. Nature’s ballerina.

The two younger reptiles with kohl-rimmed eyes were staring into the vastness of the heat, savouring the blue skies and its meandering cotton clouds. They seemed to be twins, greyish green, sharing the colour of the vine from which they hung. Before long both scuttled into the bush, perhaps not wanting sunburns on their flawless skin.

The elder was still perched on the box, bobbing its head. Not being a herpetologist, one couldn’t understand why. Before long it too scuttled away seeking cooler temperatures of the shade. It changed it’s colour to grayish green. Gone were the two dark patches on its jowl. We watched transfixed. The whole day lay ahead of it, flitting from bough to bough, from man-made topography to nature’s. And changing colour from moment to moment.

Chameleons change colour to survive, people change colour not just to survive.