India, Sept. 13 -- At Sunder Nursery in Central Delhi, a woman is walking beneath the flowering frangipani trees. Her braid is threaded with two white frangipani blooms, one above the other (see photo). This was another season, but the frangipani at Sunder Nursery has the useful habit of blooming throughout the year. On this September afternoon, a second woman here also has a frangipani in her hair, except that hers is a large white clip shaped almost exactly like the flower. Indeed, Delhiwale wearing such a frangipani clip have been sighted across the city.

Frangipanis bloom profusely in the rains and are thus impossible to miss across the capital these days. At Sunder Nursery, the frangipanis line the parallel trails facing the Sunder ...