Dragonflies

If I could go back 25 years in time, around 3.00 in the afternoon today, I would have been besides some Pokhuri in Rourkela, watching the buffaloes from the Khatals all around it wading into the dull emerald green (rich in spirogyra) waters, marveling at the recalcitrance of the egrets - blobs of sun-splashed white on the dark bovine hides - most of them waiting till their feet are wet before kicking off and flying around....

I would have been chewing on a stem of grass, the sun would have been hot on my back and I would have had thousands and thousands of dragonflies all around, transparent winged specks of yellow, red, black and green, there but still not there, as whimsical in their flight and direction as the kapok parachuted seeds floating out of a Bombax fruit that has ripened and burst.....

I didn't go back 25 years in time today (I did go for cycle ride sometime back, charmed out by the moonlight, more about that later) but I have been seeing quite a few dragonflies here in Alwal (a locality in Hyderabad) too (quite notably above the Football ground near Loyola Academy, that becomes almost a mini-pond every year after the rains), so well, I wikied (yes, its now as much of a word as googled is) and apart from coming to know that the Samurai identify themselves with the dragonfly and so many other things that I don't want to bore you with, came across this beautiful Vietnamese saying -

"Chuồn chuồn bay thấp thì mưa, bay cao thì nắng, bay vừa thì râm"

What does it mean?

If Wikipedia is to be believed, "Vietnamese people have a traditional way to forecast rain by seeing dragonflies: "Chuồn chuồn bay thấp thì mưa, bay cao thì nắng, bay vừa thì râm" (Dragonflies fly at low level, it is rainy; dragonflies fly at high level, it is sunny; dragonflies fly at medium level, it is shadowy)."

Well, I think I need to get away soon and go farther than the Football Ground near Loyola Academy (or Shameerpet Lake, for that matter).

And find a lake / wetland where the dragonflies float around in thousands.....