As the monsoon intensifies over Calcutta, my mood keeps getting as dark as the gathering clouds. I would have snapped at everybody at home if only there was anybody close at hand. But usually there isn’t, and so I take one look at the grey sky each morning and then start muttering to myself. I scowl hard at the crow who insistently croaks at me from the window sill, wince at the sounds of happy domesticity filtering into my room from all sides, and then stare hard at myself in the mirror. The face that looks back closely resembles that of the Duchess in Tenniel’s illustration of Alice in Wonderland.

I have decided to deal with the boredom of bald streets and blank days by watching trees, which have been made indescribably beautiful by the rains. I sometimes get maudlin thinking that if the trees weren’t there, I could not have survived Calcutta. They have been my only friends since childhood, which would have been miserable without the trees.

I spent a large part of my growing years conversing with the giant debdaru in our garden. True to its name (“the door of the gods”), the tree reached the portals of heaven high up in the sky. It housed a number of animals and birds, from civet cats to kites, in the length of its trunk. How I wished it could be my home as well.

But the debdaru somehow induced an effect of the sublime, and I feared it as much I adored it. Its leafy branches hung over our terrace. If you held them tight when the wind blew, they could actually pull you off your feet. Getting sucked into its green bosom was my favourite dream and the scariest nightmare.

On lonely afternoons, I would creep to the terrace, touch the debdaru’s leaves surreptitiously, peep inside its emerald bower and withdraw hurriedly when it sighed and shuddered in the wind.

The blissful hours I spent with the debdaru have convinced me that everything good on this earth must have a green smell. So I move about the streets of Calcutta sniffing like a dog, eager to rediscover that particular whiff of joy. Most of the time I am disappointed, but then I am caught unawares by it in the unlikeliest of places.

These days, when I return home from work late at night, the quiet fragrance of the kadam blossom trails me all along the Rashbehari Avenue. It performs its secret ministry inside my brain to lighten the dead weight of the day gone by. Sometimes I wake up suddenly in the middle of the night to find that mysterious perfume floating like a mist in my room, and for once I am happy. I know that a few months later, the fragrance of the kadam will be replaced by that of the chhatim. That sharp, spicy smell will inevitably torture me with a palimpsest of starlit winter nights belonging to another time.

Last week, my friend and I were driving aimlessly through Salt Lake when we found ourselves in what is called the Deer Park (there aren’t enough deer left in it to justify the name). The din of traffic was suddenly replaced by the rustle of leaves. Watery sunrays filtered through sal leaves speckled the car’s window pane. Overwhelmed by this divinely woody smell, I could hardly believe I was in Calcutta. I was still praying for the journey through this neverland to continue forever when the car took a turn and the trees were replaced by the usual ugly blocks of flats.

Since the world is too much with me, I have decided to spend my last days in a forest among the trees. But I am already getting panic attacks wondering whether they would last until the time I am ready to retire.