New Delhi, May 23 -- The sun sandpapered our skin, and we stood there, wordless, feeling like we had become smaller. The sky was the colourless expanse that follows temperatures above 42 degrees Celsius, but the skyline itself was not without colour. Amaltas sprung its blossoms at everyone around it, a resistance washed a deep, indescribable yellow. It wasn't the orange-yellow of Dussehri mangoes nor the egg-yolk yellow of the sun; it was the yellow of the Amaltas, tender yet bright, coming right when we needed it, hanging in chandelier-like clusters that nodded even without wind. Then there were Barna trees, their flowers the colour of molten wax, a tallow that looked fragile, a full candelabra miraculously surviving the May blaze.

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