I am not a Nature person. I get bored outside cities, I wouldn’t go on a desert island no matter how nice the sea is, I intensely dislike trekking. Nature normally doesn’t impress me.
It does, though, here.
Not as much in the big things (the Himalaya, the desert, the forest), but in the small. Nature here is something you really have to deal with in your daily life, something that takes you to compromises. Under the shape of monsoon rains or of ridiculous heat, it shapes your daily activities: the heat is hotter here, the rain is just more wet. Nature is in the dust you fight in your living room and the giant ants (and by giant, believe me, I mean giant) that are invading your floor. Nature is in the hundreds street dogs barking at nights, in the cows giving milk to her little calf in the middle of the traffic, in the bores (yes, bores) that sometimes hang on certain siewalks of Delhi.
And nature is in the fun exotic quality of so many things. I buy fruit and vegetables that I have never seen before and I have to search on wikipedia to know how to eat them (see okra and custard-apple). I see parrots flying over my head and peacocks, even, in the city. Monkeys are everywhere. Sometimes I meet elephant on main roads and camels. I am surrounded by absolutely unknown plants and trees. Here, palms grow even on high hills. I saw them.
And sure, this has interest for me because it’s new, unusual, funny. But beyond that, it’s just more intense: nature tries harder here to win its battle against civilization. Despite the pollution, the traffic, the development: nature still has a voice here, as loud as the cowing crows that draw circles in the sky over the capital city.
