TEJAS IN OUR GARDEN

 TEJAS IN OUR GARDEN

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

12/IX/2024

 

It has been a long wait for Ellis’ Garden to start blooming again. Through the summer and the rainy season, the glamour had subdued. Just a few odd plants tried to do what they do best but due to the torrid heat and surprisingly heavy rains in the Suncity, things were not all upbeat.

 

To add colour, we changed our layout. From being a ‘hibiscus’ lover, we diversified to ‘evergreens’ and ‘portulaca’. Leaves of various shapes and sizes added a fresh appeal. The brightly coloured 10’o’clock flowers became the darlings of our eyes.

 

Summer also did not hamper our progress of our roof top garden where water lilies have taken over. Twenty odd colours and varieties including night bloomers could take any one's heart away. The more the heat descended on earth, the more they flourished and flowered bringing joy and happiness in abundance. Their foliage added a sharp contrast. Guppies and Mollies added to the diversity.

 

Nature is not the only one which can strike the plants. It is humans who also are catastrophic. People stole our pots, broke a few, uprooted many plants  and took away rather stole quite a few pots with lily bulbs thinking they were empty. Yours truly, scanned the colony also and voila. Through the CCTV camera we caught them red handed.

 

The thieves accepted and apologised and wanted to return the plants. I let them keep most of them as a present from our side with a warning to never step in our lane again. It was heartbreaking to see the destroyed pots and plants but they had been stolen from many gardens. They are ‘Kleptomaniacs’. I leave it at that.

 

Be that as it may. This morning the first hibiscus bloom just took my breath away. This gave me an opportunity to closely inspect other plants in the garden. We are most excited about the Papayas and that is where I got a surprise.

 

There was something unusual sitting on a bunch of papaya flowers. It was a big insect but was not a butterfly. It had fairly dark coloured wings. It appeared to be a small butterfly with ‘Delta Wings’. This term I had just picked up during an air show conducted by the Indian Air Force in our city.

 

The mighty Tejas (LCA) has Delta wings and this moth called the ‘Macroglossum Semifasciata’ also resembled those wings quite a bit. Though, I may be imagining too much. The moth also had a protrusion in the rear like the LCA from where the exhaust exists. On close inspection, our moth also had a refuelling spout jutting out of its head like the Tejas. I am not sure if HAL ever thought of such similarities.

 

This moth is also called a Hummingbird Hawkmoth. I am not sure it hunts hummingbirds like a hawk for food. But surely our Tejas does hunt the enemy like a hawk from the air.

 

The presence of this moth told me that our garden is alive and kicking. Its comparison to the Tejas is just my imagination. May the TEJAS be the most potent weapon delivery air platform when the need arises in times to come. I wish I could bombard the plant thieves’ garden with an aircraft.

 

Do you guys also see such a similarity between the hummingbird hawkmoth and the LCA? I wonder!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

©® NOEL ELLIS