The weather is changing.. and it is signaling very openly to those who are smart enough to understand, that there is more drastic change to come...
it is changing at a pace that for most of the world seemingly unnoticed but for those who have been watching nature so far, it is VERY Evident.

Few examples I can share... point 1 - the flowers which are referred to in Hindi as 'Tesu' which - I am not so sure but - as the link shows, is related to the Flame of the Forest or the Gulmohar flower.
These flowers at least till 2005 didn't bloom by January. They usually bloomed just a few days before Holi which is usually in March.
This year, these flowers are in full bloom, in the last week of Jan. I happened to see these blooms along the NH3 in M.P. on 25th Jan.
Since they are in full bloom then it means they began blooming a few weeks before, that is much into the first week of Jan.

Point 2 - The Indian cuckoo, or the Koel, usually comes out of its hibernation in the beginning of April, if not a week or so earlier.
This year, I heard the cuckoo off and on through the fall season, around Oct-Dec and then again last week.
Way back in the 80s, the arrival of summer and mangoes was signaled by this bird.

So in 2009, is the cuckoo getting the blues of the weather? or is it telling us all something that we might want to hear and take notice immediately?

Is it telling us that the weather is getting warmer as the cuckoo would expect it to be early April... though it is still end of Jan when we are known to have temperatures as low as 6-7 deg through the Day, and not just in the night???

point 3 - Snow in London. No reason for an alarm as London does experience this kind of weather once in a long time, but in th last 3 years, it is the second time.
So does it need to be noticed and thought about?

point 4 - snowstorm in the northeast US and Ice storm in the lower southern US. Normal phenomenon? ask the weather men!!!

bottom line... the signs are here in India, the world and in the arctics where the glaciers are breaking off...
People in India - the man on the street - understands some of it, but does not bother as we are not a 'scientific' society, we do not think logically and we do not think cause and effect though our culture did bring up the whole concept of Vedanta which is basically cause and effect theory...
But we hardly put it to practice and never relate it to things around us...

So we will be panicking when the effect comes up in a drastic form, and all we shall see will be politicians blaming someone and the rest of us blaming the politicians...

We shall hopefully try and rest in peace at least - in large masses...

All over the world, one thing that really stands out in stark contrast is the amount of destruction that mankind unleashes in the name of development.
So also, in a city like this, I was appalled when I came across the fact that the so called city planners were totally unprepared at the influx of people into the city and over the last 5 years or so, have unleashed unplanned development projects in the city... at the cost of high amounts of destruction - of nature.

The first prime targets of all development are the lungs of a city, the trees.

The destruction of trees in Indore began almost 4 years back, at various locations including the existing A.B.Road which passed outside the erstwhile old Indore city. The excuses given by the city planners was that the trees were a hindrance for development and hence they must go....

I wonder what kind of qualified planners these people are that they failed to recognise the need for building their designs around existing natural structures than destroying the structures to the extent that the whole city feels the impact.
Almost 40 odd trees were cut down on the Starlit road to widen it to accomodate more traffic and more commercial structures.
Around 100 odd trees were cut down on the A.B.Road all along from the outer ring road on the South till Scheme 74 on the North, under some plan, where they were to widen the road.
But today, the plan has been scrapped and no one has bothered to calculate and consider the loss they have unleashed by destroying trees that were probably more than 100 yrs old.

Open lands have been usurped by the builder politician nexus, killing the real spirit of progress for the city.

Unfortunate again, that the common citizen in that part of the country is one who seeks for his self, there is no collective conscience that the citizens bring together to ensure that their city preserves it's charm at least for the sake of the Nature that it was known for;

Shab-e-malwa - the glorified evening of Malwa - an erstwhile oft repeated Urdu phrase that described succinctly the glory of the breezy evenings of the Malwa plateau that Indore is part of, now no longer retains it's meaning or charm.
The balmy breezy evenings have been replaced by hot dusty winds that bring in dust covering everything in it's path, turning the landscape into a bleak, dreary, hot parched brown cover.
So much so the price to pay for development in once upon a time beautiful city.