The Orchid Show: India Blooms, at the Chicago Botanic Garden

     "The Orchid Show: India Blooms," opened at the Chicago Botanic Garden Friday night, in a special showing for members. Friday had been a very long day at the end of a very long week, but my wife and I rose to the occasion and slid over to take a peek. Regular readers might recall me being on the record as not liking orchids, but I think the Garden is beginning to wear me down in that regard. Either that, or they had fewer of those screaming baby face orchids this year, more beautiful, colorful sunburst varieties. 

     The 11th annual show was stunning, and while we spent an hour oohing and ahhing over gorgeous primeval flowers in a rainbow of colors, I'm a little abashed to say what the highlight for me was — not the blooms, or the opening remarks by Indian consul general, Somnath Ghosh, nor the excellent Indian chow passed by energetic servers, nor even the haunting music by the Jazz Mata Trio, whose percussionist, Kayan Pathak of course knows my brother-in-law, Alan Goldberg, because all Chicago drummers of a certain vintage know each other. (I asked because he mentioned playing with Corky Siegel, which is the musical equivalent of saying he'd been to our seder).

    The biggest pleasure, for me, was etymological. A display against a vivid blue background explained that the word "indigo" comes from the Greek word indikon meaning, "from India." Did not know that. Other unusual words jumped out — the orchids are grown in "orchidariums," and the distinctive stepped terraces used to collect water in arid India are "stepwells," which would be a great name for a brand of high end baby shoes.

      Of course the great peril of knowing words is the impulse to show off that knowledge. We were listening to the trio — the pleasure of the music magnified by the relief of sitting down — when my attention focused on the stringed instrument played by the musician in the center of the group.

    "I think that's called an 'oud,'" I whispered to my wife, quite pleased with myself, showing off a scrap of residual knowledge left over from my summer 2023 visit to the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix.  Interesting if true, as we reporters say. Out came the cell phone, and I basked in being right, for a moment, before my wife, sharper than myself, observed that ouds are distinctly pear-shaped, according to Prof. Google, while the instrument before us was clearly round, a detail that had escaped my notice. 

     So during a break I went up to ascertain the true situation, instrument-wise.

    "It's a ruan," said Tzu-Tsen Wu, who is from Taiwan, and we happily chatted about that imperiled nation. She has an album coming out in the spring, and promised to send me a link. We exchanged emails.

    I feel like I'm not quite conveying the orchid quality of the show. But it's late and Friday was a singular day, speaking of words. My Friday column was read by many as a cross between a premature farewell and professional suicide note, which was not my intention. Email flooded in, and while I diligently tried to read and respond to every generous and supportive note throughout the day, in the end I was overwhelmed by their sheer volume. I'll get to them all, I always do, I feel I owe readers that, nice ones anyway. But it'll take a few days. So please indulge me if today's post is shorter and less ... coherent than most. There's always tomorrow. 

    India Blooms runs through March 23.

I'm not 100 percent sure this hue is quite "indigo," but the Botanic Garden seems to thinks so.