Dancing Butterflies

Personal memory by Sandhi Gupta

2006Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

The beautiful flying colors, thousands sitting on flowers, pollinating them, circling the air basking in the sunshine of the summer and the warm glow of sun on rare winter days; butterflies could be found fluttering around houses and parks everytime of the year when I was little. I remember a warm winter afternoon I went out to play and had the most profound and beautiful interaction with nature. I found myself in the park, under a tree amidst a huge swarm of orange-colored butterflies. There were thousands of them and the sun rays shinning through the tree's leaves, in the slightly misty ambience showed as if the butterflies were dancing. One came and sat on my head and that was the time I felt as if I was a part of nature, a small one but a part of Mother Nature. Now I feel that part of nature has gone, it's rare to find a butterfly and it makes me sad to think that soon one will only be able to see them in museums.