Its finally falling! Ok that's terrible english. What I meant was ... fall has finally begun! And it looks so amazing now. Yeah yeah, i was talking of going back to India just a couple days back ... maybe i'L see the fall here and go ... and maybe haloween too ... and then maybe thanksgiving and christmas ... new year of course ... heck i'm going nowhere until December 2009.

But oh yeah ... fall has begun! The leaves of the deciduous trees finally change colour. The foliage looks so beautiful now ... golden brown ... purple ... mild red ... its such a welcome change! Of course ... fall is a harbinger of terrible winter days ahead ... but atleast lets enjoy this as much as we can. We never got to see autumn (or fall) back home. And what we call winter at home is not really winter. We never have winter. It just ceases to be real hot ... that's all. So we kinda have just summer and rain ... and transition periods.

Seen those red leaves? They are from the maple tree. I was wondering why exactly these leaves change colour. It so happens that ... as winter comes ... there is not enough light for photosynthesis. The food making factories shut down. The green chlorophyll disappears from the leaf ... and other colours start showing up. These colours are inherently present in the leaf but dont show up as it is masked by chlorophyll. Sometimes, as in maple, the glucose turns reddish in colour presenting that colour. The same principal is observed in bananas ... bananas are green in colour as long as it contains chlorophyll ... when its chlorophyll breaks down, it shows up its yellow colour which was inherently present in it. Cool huh?