Garden Diaries- June (Sunny days)

Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly.    

                   - Pablo Neruda 

No, the light was not wet at all, in my part of the world. It was dry and blazing sun. Comparatively, the garden was silent – as the birds and squirrels were too hassled with heat. Yet the month of June arrived and is almost half done.

 Yellow was the dominated colour this month. The sunshine was bright since early hours and there were plenty of Coreopsis (Tickseeds) and Cosmos all around the flower beds. Even the hedges were turning yellowish green with the mercury rising to 46 degrees. Of, course there were Amaltas flowers spreading a carpet of yellow on green grass every morning but none of these were the crowning glory of the month. The month fairly and squarely belongs to my sun-enchanted, tall giant Russian Sunflowers. Even when I got the seeds, I was not sure how tall they will be. By the time flowering started, the plants were a good 7 ft  tall and had a thick stem to support multitude of big flowers …….and then, they bloomed.

 Sunflowers, in all their golden glory, are a happy sight to behold— they can brighten up a dull day for me. I always fancied a bunch of sunflowers in a tall vase by the window. But in my childhood, we mostly had smaller varieties of sunflowers, which were easy to grow and gave plenty of flowers. Few years back when I was passing through north Karnataka on a work assignment, I saw fields of sunflower plants. They made an incredibly beautiful sight. It was like a flood of yellow for miles together. Since then, I wanted to grow big sunflowers in my garden. This was my first experiment with Russian Giants and I am elated with the result. There is so much to admire about these lovely flowers.  The multipurpose plants deliver healthy snacks (seeds), useful oil, and attract numerous birds and bees. But that is not all, they have a fascinating history and legend as well.

I may be happily growing them in South East Asia today, but like potatoes, tomatoes, and corn, these sunny plants came from the Americas, though the commercialisation happened in Russia first. Evidence suggests that the plant was cultivated by American Indians in present-day Arizona and New Mexico from about 3000 BC. Some archaeologists suggest that sunflower may have been domesticated even before corn. It was used traditionally as food, medicine, dye, and oil. Spanish conquistadors exported it to the rest of the world (i.e. Europe) by around 1500. For next three centuries, the plant was spread all over Europe and was mostly used for decoration in vases. Talking of decorative sunflowers, it is difficult not to remember the famous Van Gogh paintings of sunflower in a vase or The Painter of Sunflowers, the painting by Paul Gauguin.

The credit of bringing these flowers to Russia goes to Tsar Peter the great. It is believed that he first saw sunflowers in Netherlands and was so fascinated by them that he took some back to Russia. By the 19th century, the country was planting two million acres of sunflowers every year. In 2018 also Russia remains the top grower of Sunflowers, followed by Argentina and China. Interestingly, evidence suggests that the plant got widespread approval in Russia not by the insistence of the Royalty but by the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church exempted the sunflower seed oil from the banned oils during the month of Lent.

History came to a full circle when Russian immigrants to USA in the 19th century brought back highly developed sunflower seeds that grew bigger blooms, and sparked a renewed interest in the native American plant. The native North American sunflower plant has finally come back home after a very circuitous route around the globe. Today in many states of US, they have sunflower competitions to measure the biggest ever flowers.

Talking about the global spread of sunflowers, thanks to space-gardener astronaut Don Petite, who is famous for growing zucchini and Broccoli in space (at International Space Station), Sunflowers also reached space. Well, Mr. Petite came to an amusing (yet true) conclusion when the flower did not turn out as big and grown as its cousins back on earth. He concluded that “plants are like people. They are intrinsically lazy and, they only put out as much effort as the environment requires.” I could not agree more.

Ah, Sunflower! Weary of time 

Who countest the steps of the Sun 

Seeking after that sweet golden clime 

Where the traveller's journey is done…

                    --William Blake 

Coming back to my own garden, the flowers started very slowly and then there was an unparalleled bloom of yellow all around, with one plant supporting as many as a dozen flowers. Well, it went all fine, till a pandemonium of parrots discovered their location and then the nightmare started. The flock ruined some plants within seconds till I drove them out. Luckily, I have many more plants which survived this vandalism. Incidentally, each sunflower's head is made of smaller flowers. The petals we see around the outside are called ray florets. Sunflowers can self-pollinate or take pollen blown by the wind or transported by insects. The flowers not only look like the sun; they need a lot of it. And what is more, they track sun-  a behaviour called heliotropism.  The flower buds and young blossoms will face east in the morning and follow the sun as the earth moves during the day.

What is even more interesting is that these amazing flowers are nature’s prettiest demonstration of famous Fibonacci sequence,a set in which each number is the sum of the previous two (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, ...). This sequence is nature’s favourite as it is found in everything from pineapples to pine cones. In the case of sunflowers, the tell-tale sign is the number of different seed spirals on the sunflower's face. If you count the clockwise and counter clockwise spirals that reach the outer edge, and you'll usually find a pair of numbers from the sequence: 34 and 55, or 55 and 89 , I think it is so because the nature strives to accommodate maximum possible spirals in the available space and this sequence is the most efficient way to achieve this.

Now, before it appears that my garden had nothing but sunflowers during the month, let me quickly add that to break the monotony of yellow all around, my brave little Zinnias continue to provide a colourful spread. They are impossibly pretty and even in this terrible heat give a glimpse of meadow like scene – with butterflies fluttering on them.

This month was exceptionally cruel for poor birds. Global warming is absolutely real and the temperature was soaring – making poor creatures of my garden, queue up to the water pots I have kept for them. In the afternoons, the sight is so dramatic when birds of various species flock together to jump in the water pot for a quick splash. Even my favourite owlet family is often seen near these water pots.

It is almost middle of the month and yet, no showers. Monsoon has actually arrived in other parts of India and I do hope it reaches us soon.

Garden Diaries- May (It's May, it's May, the month of great dismay)

Glorious Amaltas- the Golden Shower

              
                “Summer has set in with its usual severity.”

                                                       --Samuel Taylor

The sunshine is bright and blazing almost whole day. Even a sight of shade provides some relief to the eyes. Birds are always looking for the bowls of water to splash in and the plants get dried up however much we water them. Well, it is the desert land and you cannot expect an easy summer. This month and the next is harsh to get by for the birds. Even local newspapers appeal to put water for birds and set up birdhouses on trees. The usual chirping comes down from 9 in the morning till late evening (barring some parrots of course who continue to engage with us in a battle of wits over ownership of raw mangoes – Needless to say they win).
 

Parrots  attacking raw mangoes

Earlier this month, on a Thursday morning – the sky was pale blue with no clouds in sight, weather was getting warmer and as usual, this peacock came to our garden. It happily ate its daily staple diet of the bird feed and insects, took a stroll around flowerbeds and suddenly, it was dancing.  Oh, what a performance it was. No words can suffice to that display of colour and I guess contentment (which no doubt came from a good meal). And this is how, ordinary Thursdays turn magical in the marvelous month of May.

Dance Performance in the Garden

AA Milne wrote somewhere that “I regretted that the loveliness of May was lost for so many in the clamour of elections when the only 'issues' which really mattered were the apple and cherry blossom, the budding flowers, and the fresh pale green of birch and beech.” 

 If I think of the Indian Summer alternative to English apple and cherry blossoms, it would be definitely yellow Amaltas (Golden Shower tree) and red Gulmohar (Delonix regia). Yes, election talk even here overshadowed every other real issue. But for anyone keeping his/ her eyes open, it is difficult to overlook the beauty of trees turning the brightest of yellow and red. In India, it is typical to line up the streets with these trees. They flower simultaneously and make such a delightful sight in summers. For me, these flowering trees of Amaltas and Gulmohar and the cuckoo singing on the mango trees are two most endearing sights of Indian Summers. I feel lucky to have many Amaltas and Gulmohars around my house .

जियें तो अपने बग़ीचे में गुलमोहर के तले,

 मरें तो ग़ैर की गलियों में गुलमोहर के लिये

May is not a very forgiving month for flowers but then you have some brave hearts. I am specifically partial to Zinnia- which bloom from summers to monsoons with great gusto. This time we are particularly lucky with Zinnias. We have all possible colors and shades in them and they provide a delightful respite from the dearth of colour in my flowerbeds otherwise.

Colors of Zinnia

My giant sunflower plants are now much taller than me and are full of promise. Buds are already opening and I do hope to see the most beautiful shade of yellow in the garden. Meanwhile, birds are building nests all over the house – inside the hedge, behind the ACs, over the telephone box and of course, in the shrubs and on the trees. Many nests also have eggs. The family of Grey Francolins (Teetar) gleefully march with their latest generation, reminding me of the old film song (Teetar ke do aage teetar ……). In the wild mulberry tree, I have noticed a small nest built by a robin and you can see blue eggs inside. I have been warned by a birder friend not to go very near the nest, in search of a good photograph, as that might attract predators to the nest.

Two happy updates from last month- my owlet family has a new addition too. The junior is very shy and hardly steps out of the tree hole but like all kids, it is curious enough to peep now and then. The eyes are still white, unlike parents and the little one is exceptionally cute.

Baby owlet i.e. Ullu Ka Pattha

Also in my little waterlily pond, we have finally got another colour. Most adorable shade of peach pink which melts my heart every morning. I wish the pond was bigger to accommodate more of these waterlilies.

By the way, some Mangoes have survived too, despite vicious continued attacks from parrots and pigeons. Now they are big enough to be used for pickles, chutneys,panna and all such delightful recipes which taste of summer and we are taking full advantage of them.

While the city regularly faces evening thunderstorms followed by some raindrops, by the morning it is again hot. Hope June will bring some real rain showers.

New colour of Waterlily( Nilopher) 

Garden Diaries – April ( Hope is in the Air)

                             

"O Day after day we can't help growing older.

Year after year spring can't help seeming younger.

Come let's enjoy our wine cup today,

Nor pity the flowers fallen."

                           -  Wang Wei, On Parting with Spring

Yes, it is April and the spring is very much over. In fact, it has left us in the end of March itself when the flowers started withering and the sunshine became sharper. Now, almost in the middle of April, I see all the portents of Indian summer around me. Neem trees are flowering, Amla tree is showing new leaves and most importantly, Mango blossoms have turned into small raw mangoes. In my part of the world, it is not easy for mangoes to ripe peacefully.  First you have pandemonium of parakeets who find them irresistible – though half the times they just peck the fruit and play with it rather than eating it - and then almost every second evening, there is a thunderstorm making little raw mangoes fall. Well, as of now I still have some kairi (raw mangoes as they are called in Rajasthan) on the tree and I do hope they will survive all this.

Brave little Amiya/ Kairi still surviving Birds and Thunderstorms

But before we go any further, a word (or two) about my garden diaries. The inspiration came from Katheleen N Murray’s My Garden in Wilderness. It was such a delightful read, suggested to me by my friend Rajneesh. The joy of growing a garden is something only a gardener can understand. You are so fascinated by the changing scene in the garden- the first flowers, the attacks by birds, the swarming of bees and the never-ending weeds that you end up talking about it all the time. In my case, I found almost all my google searches and social media shares were turning to be about my garden. Like Ms. Murray, I am sure, I would like to read about my Jaipur-garden-experience again in future and may be re-live the joys and anxiety of a gardener. So the diaries are primarily for my own future reading. I am putting them on my blog, because this is where I write about things dominating my thoughts including gardening. I have earlier also written about my love for gardening and even my Gardening genes , my childhood summer days with Khus scented siestas and waking up with Cuckoos song .
So here we go – I hope to come up with monthly editions of my garden diary. Suggestions (on gardening) and comments on my post are welcome, as always.

My waterlilies

 Back to April , it is not the prettiest month in the garden. In Jaipur where I live, it is getting hotter by every passing day and the beautiful days of seasonal winter flowers are long over. Luckily, I was prompt enough to grow seedlings for my sunflowers, Zinnias, Celosia and Cosmos in February end and that's why the flower beds are now full of neat rows of plants …and a hope of flowers very soon. In fact Zinnias are already showing early blooms. Of course, I had to pinch many buds so that the plant  grow better and thicker , but I do have some flowers here and there .

Buds on Bela plant

However, the flowers which make my heart dance with joy these days, are none of these seasonals. It is our good old Bela – also called as Mogra or Motiya in India and Arabian jasmine elsewhere. Interestingly the botanical name Jasminum sambac is supposedly derived from Sanskrit word Champak. The fragrant white flowers, are loved all over Asia. It is national flower of Philippines and also Indonesia. In China it is used in Jasmine tea and in India, it is used to make gajras- the flower ornament for hair. Just a handful of these in a room can fill the room with intoxicating fragrance. The variety I have in my garden in the creeper and it is full of flowers every night. I keep them in my flower bowls, on my office table and even next to my pillow.

Surprisingly, the heat is suiting my herbs. Carrom, Rosemary and thyme are all suddenly full of life. I am growing lemongrass for the first time and even that has responded pretty well to summer.

Amla tree showing new leaves 

 “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.” 

                                                  -― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

A delightful scene change in April is bursting new leaves on all trees. There are new leaves all around. I saw the Amla growing new leaves for the first time and it is beautiful.  My lone Frangipani, the centerpiece of my lawn is full of new leaves. In the mornings it is full of chirping bulbuls, mynas, parrots, magpies, cuckoos and of course, squirrels. It attracts a lot of bird and squirrel activity around it partly because   it is in the center of the lawn and partly because I put bird feed and water in terracotta bowl under it. Most of the bird feed however is either taken by squirrels or a pair of Yellow-wattled lapwings ( Titehri in Hindi ) – who are always present in the garden.

Fragrant Desi Gulab

Few plants of  Desi Gulab  are thankfully giving some flowers. They add to the aroma of morning breeze full of mogra fragrance and also add some colour. The Indian desi Gulab or musk rose (Rosa moschata), a very fragrant rose variety, is closely related to the Damascus rose  that originated in Persia. It produces small flowers with pink petals. The petals retain their delicate fragrance long after drying. I dry some of these and use them in my recipes too.

Other than my seasonal Kochias and Portulacas , there is nothing much to plant in pots . Some Adeniums were flowering till now but nothing much to add colour. In the climbers, I have a Rangoon creeper (Madhumalti ) full of pink and white flowers and then there are couple of Bougainvilleas . Not much flowers in Bougainvilleas this season as the plants were recently planted.

Rangoon Creeper i.e. Madhumalti

While the other birds – pigeons, doves and bulbuls seem busy all the time either collecting food or collecting straws to build nests, the peacocks scream early mornings and evenings – perhaps hoping for a rain-shower. They even provide us with an occasional dance performance in the lawn after a heartful meal of bird feed and well,  insects from the waterlily pond.

Mukund during his morning performance

 The only bird who seem to be ill at ease with summer heat , like me,  is the family of owlets who live in a tree hole nearby. The heat seem to be bothering them so much that these days they make appearance even in day time. The one owlet (I have named him Peetaksh-the one with Yellow eyes) usually see me off when I get into car for office. On Sundays also, it often peeps out of its hole and occasionally in late evenings even daringly come to the water bowl for a sip or splash.

It is too hot to stay inside all day -Peetaksh

As I look at it, April is a month full of hope. Hope of ripe mangoes, hope of sunflowers and hope of surviving the green lush of the lawn in the heat. More than anything, hope that the May will be kinder to the garden and its beings. As someone said - April is a promise that May is bound to keep.

Flowers in April -Zinnias, Cosmos and an occasional Rose

Your one Wild and Precious life

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

-- Mary Oliver , 'The Summer Day'

We live in what we imagine

“Bless the spirit that makes connections,

for truly we live in what we imagine.

Clocks move along side our real life

with steps that are ever the same.

Though we do not know our exact location,

we are held in place by what links us.

Across trackless distances

antennas sense each other.

Pure attention, the essence of the powers!

Distracted by each day's doing,

how can we hear the signals?

Even as the farmer labors

there where the seed turns into summer,

it is not his work. It is Earth who gives.”

~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~

Castles and Cold Waves of Copenhagen

If Copenhagen were a person, that person would be generous, beautiful, elderly, but with a flair. A human being that has certain propensities for quarreling, filled with imagination and with appetite for the new and with respect for the old - somebody who takes good care of things and of people.

Connie Nielsen

It appears that Ms. Nielsen was describing my Danish landlady when she said these words. At the age of 82, Eva was standing outside her Osterbro home, wearing a warm smile on that chilly morning. She was braving the cold wind to welcome me to Copenhagen on the Monday after Easter. One look at her and I felt at home. If you go from one of the most populous countries of the world to Scandinavia, you marvel about many things. To begin with, octogenarian landladies who wear red lipstick and ride bicycle, live alone, plant flowers, bake cakes and are perhaps fitter than you. The warmth, pride in Danish culture   coupled with eccentricity runs in all streams of Danish life. It reflects in their majestic castles, their cuisine and also in their quirky designs. But at some level the life is much evolved. Luckily, I got to decipher this Danish puzzle in the best season of the year – spring.

Talking of weather, April was supposed to be warm and welcoming. Then why  there  was this skin piercing cold wind which not only moved the gorgeous windmills in the sea but also quaked my bones covered with multiple layers of clothing. The trees on the road were bereft on any leaves and the green grass below was only half awake after the harsh winter. There were hardly any flowers in sight – even in the famous King’s Garden. To my Indian mind, this was no spring.

For me the first look of the city was of a deserted town. There were absolutely no signs of humans on street. First I blamed it on winds, then on extended Easter holidays. Finally on the third day,  the realization dawned that perhaps there are not many people in the city. Well, this was true till the weekend came. As Helen Derbyl writes in her guide on Denmark that the population is scant unless the weather is very sunny or the Swedes very thirsty. So it was only on the first weekend that we saw people and cycles – people on cycles and people walking on the streets…mostly to the beer  bars .

 It’s a strange capital city- a place where pedestrian set the pace not the automobile traffic. It was rather common to find in Copenhagen mothers safely parking baby carriages (or the famous Christiania bikes with a cart to carry stuff/ babies in front) outside bakeries while outdoor cafés fill with cappuccino-sippers, and super fit lanky Danes pedal to work in lanes thick with bicycle traffic.

In my 11 minute walk to workplace in Mormovej every morning , it was a sheer delight to face the crisp morning air punctuated by golden sunshine in the pedestrian streets redolent of baked bread, baskets of organic strawberries  and soap-scrubbed storefronts. If there's such a thing as a heartwarming city sight, this was it!

No wonder that when today’s glittering world metros with their high-rises and  traffic troubles , seek enlightenment, they commonly look to Copenhagen. The Danish capital regularly tops world liveability lists. This is one of the globe's greenest, cleanest, most sustainable urban centres, a place where cycling is serious transport, where buses and the metro run frequently and around the clock, and where the harbor is squeaky clean enough for a bracing dip.

But Copenhagen has always been far more complex than Denmark’s “happy nation” reputation. It had other layers to show as well- in all shades of greys , much like the designer coats I admired people wearing there  .   The gorgeous old town with splendid historic buildings stands near areas that have only recently seen a renaissance after years of gang violence, prostitution and ethnic tensions. The in-famous Freetown Christiania was just a walk away from the city centre with its cannabis selling Pusher Street. In my tour of “alternative”-Copenhagen, I saw some of these areas and was amused to find the unique “solutions” devised by the policymakers to deal with these. To quote one, the state funded designer drug consumption rooms providing a safe haven for drug addicts to inject themselves in calm surroundings may sound weird to many of us. But as the experiment shows, it has proved to be an effective method of bringing down the drug menace and making the neighborhood safe for kids.

For me the more attractive were the places associated with city’s history of witch hunts, executions, mobsters and murderers. With such morbid details of history, it is funny that the city is also reputed to be the fairy tale city. When I set out to explore the Fairy tale side of the city, I went in search of Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid and almost accidentally discovered magic of Danish weather. In the Langelinie Park, the trees which were standing bare just the other day were almost bursting into pink Cherry Blossoms. With a cute little English Church in the backdrop, combined with the imposing Gefion fountain depicting the Norse goddess Gefjun, the cherry blossoms were on a bloom leaving no doubt that the spring had finally arrived.  It, however took me another weekend to realize that there can be an even better place to admire cherry and almond blossoms – Bispebjerg Cemetery. The explosion of a pink and white flower sky was mesmerizing in sprawling space of Bispebjerg Cemetery.

While the little Mermaid surrounded by selfie clicking tourists did not impress me much- it opened my mind to the idea of discovering fairytales at oddest possible places. And then I found them – underwater bronze statues of the family of Agnete and Merman, twisted dragon tales on the old Stock Exchange (Borsen), the spiral stairs to (almost) heaven on the baroque Church of Our Saviour , snow leopards and wolves adorning the town hall building …and of course , Holger the Dane who sits asleep in the casemates of Kronborg Castle - until the day when Denmark is in real trouble and he will wake up and defend the mother country.

After a month of stay, I came to the conclusion that despite all jokes about their language and behavior, Danes definitely have their lives sorted like none of us. They do appreciate what really matters – clean air, green grass, blue waters of the sea….and perhaps a good drink to go with it. They live simple lives enjoying and not destroying nature. They peddle their cycles with great joy – without any pretensions and consciousness of wealth or class . 

In the words of  Xenophobe’s Guide to the Danes –

“For the Danes, culture is a way of shedding the modern world and retracing their roots. All Danes are inveterate nature lovers. They cultivate an almost masochistic feeling of insignificance coupled with awe at nature’s power and the forces of life. Danish literature is full of examples of characters trying to come to terms with man’s essential loneliness and unimportance.”

If you ask me that is the way to go.

Yerushalayim Shel Zahav - Jerusalem of Gold

There can be various reasons for never ever visiting Israel and if you ask me, the rude airline staff of El Al should feature in top 5.  But that is not all. Visa interview for Israel is a unique experience too. On the day of my visa interview at Israel embassy I was asked, along with other two visa aspirants  to stand 250 meters away from the gate in blazing sun so that we are no security threat to the embassy. After one hour of wait, in the interview I was asked (very politely) that how do Israel Embassy assure itself that I do not intend to take up a permanent employment in Israel. I was clueless how to politely convey that I am not mad enough to leave a steady job of 17 years in Indian Civil Service to think of migrating to Israel. But the guy was not just completing the checklist. It was a serious question asked earnestly. So I responded with a serious face and luckily was able to satisfy him that someone who is neither Christian nor Muslim nor Jew may also consider to visit Jerusalem for vacation. The person before me was not so lucky, when he explained that he has no intention of staying in Israel beyond 7 days of vacation, and that he has a comfortable life and business in India, the Embassy officer shrugged with disinterest. He said “Prove it.” Visibly baffled, the person exclaimed – “How? And with such rude behavior, I doubt if I would like to go there at all.” The embassy clerk looking straight into the visa aspirant’s eye and  told him “As you wish. You wanted to visit Israel, we never asked you to.” That was my first introduction to Israel’s paranoia with security.

However, with all the problems of getting visa, firming up travel and logistics and the scolding of people around us (“Israel! Who travels there for leisure...go to US or Western Europe.”), the bunch of crazy five (actually 4.5) landed at Tel Aviv earlier this year.  And looking back, what an experience it was! Unique. Incredible. Breathtakingly thrilling.

Israel is spectacular. It is nothing like Europe or Asia or any other place in the world (perhaps). Tel Aviv the cosmopolitan city stands next to Jaffa old city, which is still frozen in medieval age. Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was divine and the Museums were world class.   Haifa the port town is picture perfect. Dead Sea is seen-to-be-believed kind of place.  Even the barren hills of Masada fort leave you so awestruck. Haifa, Caesarea, Jaffa ...all places are beautiful but nothing prepares you to face Jerusalem. There is something about this ancient city, a disputed city that is so important to people of three Abrahamic religions - Judaism, Islam and Christianity. It is so mind blowing that it attracts - or perhaps even causes - a special kind of madness. For some people, Jerusalem is a condition, like being in love; for others, it is a state of mind, a constant tension between rival flags and faiths, or members of the same faith. You may feel moved, energized, or swept into the maelstrom of contemporary or even historical issues—but the city will not leave you unaffected. No, none of us came back with the famed Jerusalem syndrome but then, it was nothing less than a mad plan for us to go there in the first place.

The parallel with two other cities – Varanasi and Rome comes to mind when you think Jerusalem as an eternal city. Now that I have been to all three I can say with certainty that each of these three sacred cities have their own character – they do have great energies but apart from that each one is unique. 

Jerusalem is a city suspended between heaven and earth, East and West, past and present—parallel universes of ancient wall with wailing pilgrims and trendy coffee shops not so far from it. The first thing you notice in this holy city is that the past is not past but it is still passing. Whether it be the past associated with biblical tales or that of holocaust, it continues to live in every moment of the city. The stories of Jesus’s life do not seem to be mere stories written in some ancient sacred text- they suddenly appear to be very real. The grief of Holocaust is not a thing of past- it still guides the minds of the people in their individual and national decisions.  And ironically, this is perhaps the only city where facts are irrelevant. Beliefs , sayings, traditions and even dreams rule the flow.

And so, as we continued our exploration of the Holy City of Jerusalem, we too began to take things on faith. The guides issued repeated  disclaimers  while showing sites and parallel sites of the same events  but after a while, it simply didn’t matter . If you are a Muslim, you believe that the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven from Temple Mount, conversed with God, and returned to inspire his followers. If you are Christian or Jewish, you believe that the stone inside the Dome of the Rock is the place where Abraham was ordered by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. Druze, Samaritans, Bahá’í, Coptic Christians, Ethiopian Christians, and Armenians all believe that miracles of faith occurred in this ancient city. And almost everyone chooses to believe that if you write a prayer on a slip of paper and shove it into a crack in the Western Wall, your prayer will be granted. Like everyone else, we descended to the wall and dutifully left a note. I am not particularly a religious person, but my rational mind tells me that there must be something in this land that faiths which otherwise do not agree on most things, agree on the sacredness of this place.

Like Varanasi for Hindus, the faithful of the Abrahamic religions aspire to be buried on Mount of Olives. From atop the Mount of Olives we surveyed the Holy city of Jerusalem in all its glory. Directly below us, white marble caskets in the Jewish cemetery tumbled down the hillside like giant rows of dominoes. This cemetery may be the most expensive real estate in the world as the tradition holds that those who are buried here will be the first to be resurrected when the Messiah appears. No wonder that people from all over the world pay thousands of dollars for one of these tiny plots.  The price of eternity, however, is escalating as the cemetery is fast running out of space.

 But the mountain in not only just the cemetery. It is also ( believed to be ) the place  from where Jesus ascended to heaven , Garden of Gethsemane where Christ prayed before God for the very last time before being betrayed by Judas and Chapel of Dominus Flevit, the place where, according to the Gospel of Luke, Jesus wept over the fate of Jerusalem.

Travelling in and around Jerusalem is mystifying. There is so much history, so many legends and so much to understand. How do you cram 4000 years of history, faith and myths in one week? For some of us it is also our first encounter with the world of Jewish ideology and symbols - I mean beyond books and movies.  For the youngest member of our group it was also her first introduction to the horror of holocaust. For all of us it was a happy introduction to the “food that Jesus ate” but most importantly it was our first experience to the great divide between the places where Jesus was born and where he was buried. The physical distance was not much but the political divide made such visible difference between Philistine and Israel. The tensions are all-around. The paranoia with security is very visible (and very irritating). There are claims and counter claims. But the golden Jerusalem stands strong amidst all these - this is after all , not the land which grows on worldly facts – it is a land created on beliefs and  legends of centuries and thrives of those too.