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Where Nature’s palette unfolds

In Holland, the sight of several thousand tulips, standing head to colourful head, was sufficient to make poets of the common human being

Colourful carpet From afar, the tulips don’t look like flowers at all. In ruby red and bubble-gum pink, swathes of orange, and ribbons of yellow, they look like a magnificent still-life painting

Vigorously fanning ourselves with the map of Holland, squinting against the fierce mid-day sun, we scanned the horizon for a glimmer of colour…. disappointingly, all we saw were lush meadows. It was a frightfully hot day by Dutch standards and it quickly turned the interiors of the car into an oven, and us, the inhabitants all squishy and snappy. Yet, we gamely drove on. After all, the famous Dutch bulb-fields are said to be a riot of colour for barely a few weeks every year; and having missed it last year (late spring, too cold for the tulips and all that), we were determined to somehow see the tulips in bloom. Just then, there was an excited squeal from the back seat. “Oh look, look there; it’s a gigantic rainbow rug!” And indeed, there it was, just off the main road, a spectacular carpet of flowers, in ruby red and bubble-gum pink, swathes of orange, ribbons of yellow, like an enormous, magnificent still-life painting. Pulling over near the fields, we walked, almost in a daze, into the rows of tulips; honestly, for a moment, it felt like walking right into a larger than life oil-on-canvas.

The tulip fields of North and South Holland are simply breathtaking in full-bloom. From afar, they don’t look like flowers at all…the tulips, meticulously planted in neat rows, merge to striking collage of colours. Though it’s Keukenhof, with its seven million flower-bulbs that is clearly Holland’s beloved, best-recognised tulip-garden, the bulb-fields themselves, if you know where to look for them, are equally impressive.

But, the catch clearly is knowing where and when to look. ‘North Holland is full of bulb-fields, you’ll practically trip over them’ said several acquaintances, which was about as useful as telling us that the needle was somewhere in the proverbial haystack. So we turned to Google, which, helpfully threw up 345,000 possible websites that we could trawl to find our way. Eventually, after some research, we did chalk out a route – through the villages of Hillegom, Lisse, Sassenheim, and Noordwijkerhout, renowned for their tulip fields. All we needed to know next was if the tulips had opened and we were ready to zip off. We had better luck with this piece of info; since it was probably the hottest April in history, the ‘window’ when the tulips are in full-bloom had apparently moved forward a couple of weeks, and we were asked to rush if we wanted to see more than just limp, green stalks. Which is why we were there, under a sweltering sun, clicking pictures of photogenic tulips…

Driving along our chosen path, we happened across several fields, each prettier than the previous one. The best and perhaps the biggest lay just outside the Keukenhof gardens. It was an arresting sight, a sea of warm colours, yellow, red, orange, interspersed with bands of pastel peach and pink, while the glossy, green leaves and the baked, brown earth were almost completely hidden from view by the dense, showy flowers. On closer inspection, it was obvious that there was nothing terribly fancy about the tulips on the field. Of course, each individual plant, with its monochromic waxy, bright flowers and large gangly leaves were beautiful, but they were neither dignified with fancy names, nor did they have extraordinary colourations nor complicated striations like those inside the gardens. In fact, if the flowers had stood individually, on the parched, dusty field, on an oppressively hot day, they wouldn’t have inspired tourists to whip out their cameras in a hurry; but the sight of several thousands, standing head to colourful head, under a clear blue sky, was sufficient to make poets and artists out of the common or garden human being.

Not surprisingly, tourists were going completely berserk…some were walking among rows of tulips, lugging around hi-tech cameras with foot-long lenses, others were down on their knees and elbows (why, some were even lying down!) to try and get a shot of themselves completely surrounded by flowers, while young couples happily harangued anybody who went past to ‘please make good picture’ of them.

With great reluctance, we left the field, and drove down to the other villages. All along the way, we saw charming little wayside tulip stalls, where bunches of flowers and bulbs were sold briskly to tourists, who eagerly bought them by the basketful. Every time we passed a field, cloaked in great big bands of jewel-coloured flowers, we were awfully tempted to leap out and explore it, and maybe, just maybe break out into song and dance. But since many of them were private farms, and not all of them encouraged tourists merrily trampling all over the beds, we had to be content with just drinking in the sights. And hoping that someday we would get to see the tulips in bloom again.

APARNA KARTHIKEYAN

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