Rosemary, me, and a romance over lamb chops

My reunion with her was recent.

- SAMAR HALARNKAR

Lamb chops.

(FOR REPRESENTATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY/ISTOCKPHOTO)

I was working at my desk recently when I suddenly got her sweet, lingering scent from the garden outside, wafting in on a spring breeze. When I looked up, there was no sign of her. I saw the occasional iridescent flash of a dark, little sunbird. Perhaps it was a purple-rumped sunbird, although I am no expert. Bees swarmed the butterfly bush outside, the mango tree beyond was bursting with yellow-green panicles, and the raintree beside it was covered with green seed pods.

Spring was in the air—the sunbirds and bees were busy going about their job of pollinating and renewing life. It had been more than a decade since my last whiff of rosemary, on the other side of the world on the hills of Berkeley in California. She was wild then, unrestrained, her scent everywhere.

Here in Bengaluru, I paused my work and walked out. Then I saw her: smaller, as elegant and confined to a small space, but it was unmistakably her. When I saw her, I was wondering about what to make for lunch.

So, I considered her graceful form and snipped off two branches.

I had never known of rosemary until my teens, when I heard the Simon and Garfunkel song,