Leaf

Traveling in train, I am seeing trees zooming past me. With nothing to read, I just am thinking of writing something real quick. It is a challenge to myself to jump from one idea to another to create a flow. The topic I choose is “leaf”. Yes. Leaf. The idea is this – "what all do I recollect the instant “leaf” comes into my mind?". It is just a game I am playing for myself –Time limit = 20 minutes, I need to scribble something.

Leaf – First thing coming to my mind about a leaf is its distinct color. Leaf is one of the first things taught to us as green in color.

Jumping from there, banana leaf L. I miss the banana leaf food – food eaten on banana leaf. Why don’t people in the West get a taste of it? It is such an old method of ‘disposable’ plates ;).

My drawing exam – Junior Drawing exam had banyan leaf to be drawn with typical grains and marks as seen on all the five leaves. I just know that we were all given that 5-leaf stem and asked to draw that in 3 hours. It was real great experience to do that art work to the best of our ability. It is the best way to represent nature in real close-up.

How can I forget Phyllotaxy???? Ha ha ha. Pre-University Botany subject had all complex information about leaf – Simple leaf, compound leaf, I really don’t recollect the exact names, but here are the types of leaves – leaves having parallel grains; leaves with a certain arrangement; leaves having certain shapes; and all classifications. Two words striking big are - Xylem and Phloem - cross section of leaf !!!

Touch me not – Don’t you get this in mind? As a kid, I was always fascinated with the reaction of ‘touch-me-not’ once I touched it. So interesting!

I have couple more minutes remaining. Real slow am I L.

I must not forget to mention the Fall colors of New England. It is the best and most beautiful thing once can imagine of New England. As I am looking out now, I see green leaves on the trees. Couple of months from now, I will be fortunate to see spectacular colors making me carry my digital eye all the time ;).

Leaf also reminds me of fancy dress competitions when I was a kid. “Jungle kid” is a common dress put to kids by sticking leaves on them ;). Somehow I hated that arrangement.

Gardening! Yes. I remember collecting dry leaves and depositing at one place to make it decompose. We, at our house, used to make compost out of fallen leaves.

Time out! Stop arrived.