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The woodpecker has been working all morning; the rhythmic drill of his labours has become a backdrop to my thoughts. It’s a lazy day, one in which work seems to be of no importance. The nip in the air, I tell myself is the reason for the mood. So despite the woodpecker and its obsession with work, I continue to sit rocking gently on the rocking chair by the window, looking out across the maidan just outside my house.

It’s a scene I see often, but it looks different today. I can see little changes. The angle of light for example. It slants differently in winter; something I had noticed years ago when experimenting with daylight photography, but had forgotten. Or taken for granted.I see now, how the leaves, the same leaves that wave at me every day from the trees outside my window, look different when touched with light at a slant. The colour of the bark seems less intense too. And I notice the tiny yellow butterfly zooming in and out of the shrubs in my garden.

The moon was a sliver last evening, so the scent of the night queen was not there to greet me as I walked up the steps to my home, but I see the flowers hanging heavy and spent on the bent stalks. Lighter green on darker, they are like a painter’s strokes.

The old man, once considered a drunken waster, now hired to be gardener by the colony is gathering dead leaves. Most days he strips down to torn vest and long underpants to work, today, he is still in his white kurta and dhoti and his little cap is still perched on his head, as he bends cautiously and makes a little pile.

I watch as he lights a match. A curl of smoke rises, gathers power and wafts across.
Soon tongues of flame can be seen. The smoke colours everything differently… a haze of grey that makes the gate beyond shimmer and seem to waft. It adds mystery and romance to an otherwise real scene.

The old man walks away. The woodpecker takes a break. My rocking chair makes a nearly invisible sound as wood hits stone floor. How long since I sat watching the outside? Most often on days off, I read a book, or watch television, or sit around chatting. And ignore the drama that Nature plays out outside, whether anyone watches or does not.

I watch a squirrel lift itself on to its hind legs, and quickly turn something in its paws before nibbling at it. A common enough sight; but it talks to me today of the fine balance Nature creates between living things; the fine balance required for a squirrel to prop itself up and use its paws like dexterous hands.

I wonder if Nature is telling me something, this very ordinary winter day in early January, that whether we toil or not, whether we care or don’t, whether we are happy or sad, busy or idle, poor or rich, in inflation or recession, the wheel of life will turn.

A leaf flutters down, then another. I notice the area that the old man has cleared is getting dotted with yellow again. Though the smoke is still rising from the pile he tended to.

Not very far away is the day when I will look out of my bedroom window and notice that the bare dry branches, till now bereft of leaves, has suddenly sprouted into life. The tiny leaves, bristling with green shine and wave at me, I will almost hear them calling out in excitement as they catch their first glimpse of the world.

And the sparrows and mynahs will be back. The curious crow who waits for the rubbish pail to be taken out so she can raid it for leftovers now spends the day sitting on the door cawing tunelessly till chased off will have no time to do any of it
because she will be busy building.

I see the lizard is out from behind the painting, and know from past experience that he will waddle his way round the corner and out of the window, to wait for the sun to warm his cold blood. And I know he is one of the tiny lizards I have seen running up the wall a few months ago.

It tells me clearly this lazy morning that nothing lasts forever. Seasons, bad times, good times are ever-changing. That is there is a hush, the cheer will only be heard the louder.
So it is when I get a New Year message saying that the year past has been like a rollercoaster ride, and hoping that the next year is better; I respond saying that what goes up will go down; and now that the world it down, the only way for it to take usis up!

Thank you Nature, for that lesson.