The Ghetto of Magic

At the first glance our house doesn’t look like much. In fact it looked rather like a dilapidated shack until we had a badly-needed renovation couple of years ago. Well, it was built over 40 years ago and its cracking walls, leaking roofs and damp floors were hardly any beacons for attraction. But I loved this place, all my life. It has magic. It’s the portal that has been taking me to lands beyond and unknown. It’s the magic wand that has been whooshing me to ages forgotten and unreal. Little did I know about the spell it had cast upon the little boy I was.

The Sornochapa (Magnolia Champaca) is long dead now. Only the skeletal trunk remains as a stark reminder of its glory days. And how glorious it was. The thick foliage of coarse, slightly-faded green hiding the pale-golden blooms with their mild but intoxicating aroma. Each whiff of wind would bring a hint of the aroma; each ruffling of the breeze would show a fleeting golden aura. You could have been forgiven for thinking it was something out of the Elfish Lore; beauty in subtlety, magic in elusiveness.

Then there was the Bleeding Hearts (Clerodendrum Thomsoniae). Thriving in a splash of sun on our yard and climbing up with dogged determination. Its thin, strong vines reminded me of the street urchins; a hidden ruggedness beneath their apparent frailty. The first splash of rain would bring it to bloom; a solemn mosaic of red and white. Then came the concrete monsters and poof went that splash of sun; and our Bleeding Hearts, now just a bloody memory.

But the magic lingers on. Forget about the legion of cats who don’t give a damn. Forget about the flocks of crows & sparrows and even the parrots which regularly ravage the star-fruits. Few years ago a monkey seemed pretty serious about settling here. A family of mongooses have actually settled down and I think I heard a Leopard growl some nights ago. Ok fine, the last part was my imagination.

Aah, imagination. As if the books weren’t enough; this freaking place chipped in, rather generously, in making a mind-wandering, ever-fantasising lunatic out of me. The monsoon sees a profusion of mosses, lichens and ferns on the ground, on the trees, on the walls, on the roof; yes, practically anywhere and everywhere. Walking amongst these, with the trees still drizzling long after the rain had stopped, I felt like being in the temperate rainforests of the Maori Realm.

And so lives the kid, in his little patch of magic. Ever wandering in lands and ages unknown and unreal.