Thekkady 1

We just got back from two weeks in relatively cool Thekkady, a small town on the Kerala side of the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border (but not by much), which abuts a huge game sanctuary / forest. It is my earnest intention to post some drawings, words, photographs of the same over the next few days.

(This photograph is a cheat, actually, because as you can see, the drawing is different from the real flower's pose. I had drawn it on the tree first, but its face-on view was much more complex and amazing than its profile. So I plucked it and brought it back to our room, and did it again on watercolour paper.) And by the way, what is it? It's gorgeous, with a sheen like silk, and seems to grow wild on the roadside, on trees - or perhaps they're large shrubs... (update: thanks to Anna, who surmises that this is a datura.)