Evening Walk

As dusk settles in I am out in the park for a walk. The exercise clears my head and recharges my soul and, of course, gives me an excuse to be outdoors.

On this hot day I am grateful for the soft breeze that blows at sunset. Walking along the trail that runs alongside the lake, I see haze above the water, a mist that simply sits there. The humidity of monsoon is not yet here yet I start sweating after a few brisk minutes of walking. Presently, the breeze picks up and the mist disperses.

Most of the trees in the park are mature. I find it soothing to look at their bark, tracing with my eyes their patterns and textures, left and right, up and down, in and out. The mahogany's dark-grey skin is crinkled with deep furrows and, in some cases, the thick bark has cracked into numerous pieces to prepare for a new layer. Eucalyptus trunks in the process of peeling are patterned with many shades of brown, some pieces curled gracefully. Freshly peeled trunks are covered by a shiny smooth, beige bark that you want to reach out and touch. The various palm tree trunks have rings that repeat along its entire length, showing the locations where leaves grew as the tree ascended. A rough, brown skin covers the trunk of the krishnachuras. The koroi tree's skin is pockmarked by black dots on a beige background. At twilight, while the leaves prepare to rest after a day of synthesizing food from sunlight, there is no respite for the trunks: they have to hold the tree up, day and night, for as long as they live.

As twilight recedes and night sets in, details that I could see only a few moments ago – patterns in the bark, creases in the leaves, the thin twigs making up a doel's nest, flowers of the salvia plants – melt into blurry, black-and-white impressions. Pond herons flying over the water lose the colour of their feathers and become silhouettes. Nocturnal creatures start their workday. Fruit bats fly from tree to tree looking for food. An owl, which I could never see clearly, flies below the branches above me. I wonder if it will find the large rat that had scurried across my path. And on the lake, a moving pattern of elliptical ripples tells me of a swimming snake. It is probably a checkered keelback.

I see a larger bird flying on the far side of the lake and follow it with my eyes. Moving further, I think it perches on a tree. Wishing I had my binoculars, I stop and squint for a better look. Bad move. Not only does it remain elusive, but my standing still for ten seconds garners me two mosquito bites.

As night falls, the buildings across the lake in Gulshan start lighting up. They are a rude reminder that I am in the middle of a sprawling megacity. But for a few minutes there it could have been somewhere else.

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