Nature Fest (Spring Story)
SPRING SONATA
By PRAMITA BOSE
It’s springtime! The season mellows into a cornucopia of natural beauty, growth and fertility. Mother Nature blesses the earth with her rich abundance after a spell of wintry aridity and a deciduous stint of shedding florets and foliage. The colourful blossoms, fruity groves, the surrounding lush greenery and the warm yellow sun in the sky signal a period of full bloom, aesthetic elegance and a gratified completeness. Even the lone hearts longing for love so long beat faster during the mausam of vasant in anticipation of a soulmate that could culminate into a lifelong companionship. Well, no one ever knows when the Cupid’s arrows may strike!
Spring
Waltz
The clock’s hands are advancing towards middle March,
announcing the arrival of Rituraj bahaar.
The dry, thirsty, secluded corners of a lover’s heart pining for his beloved are
unerringly weaving the dreams of amorous assignations and a romantic union.
“Yes, those bouts of secret meetings with hourly
tête-à-têtes, whispers of sweet nothings, naughty banter and priceless moments
are like beautiful memories etched eternally in the mental albums of a couple
who are already committed and have professed to be future life partners. The bumpy
distances covered with giant strides and sometimes with wobbly walks to the
final stepping stone that leads the duo to the altar of conjugal bliss and
the bowers of mating are challenging enough no doubt. But so much for saying ‘amore
mio’ is worth it, wot say?” dispenses a self-proclaimed love guru.
Ringing true to the last
line of celebrated romantic poet P.B. Shelley’s Ode to the West Wind verse, ‘If
winter comes, can spring be far behind?’, the season of optimism, optimal
sprouting and gleaming brightness never runs short of its flower shower at this
time of the year in the tropical zone!
It’s raining bougainvillea, flamboyant flower (krishnachura, its twin radhachura or peacock flower appears in monsoons), red silk cotton flower (shimul), flame of the forest (palash), Saraca indica (Asoka or Ashok tree with its namesake flowers), Tiger’s claw or the Indian coral tree flowers (mandar), cherry blossoms, marigolds, et al all over in India. Just look around to spot a cluster of budding beauties in every potted plant or discover a colourful bunch atop the crest of a tall tree.
You may pick any hue from the shade card and it is right
there in front of your eyes! Witness its elaborate display in nature’s showrooms
either on the roadside, hanging from the residential balconies or grown in the
gardens with a pair of careful hands. Sprays of magenta, white, red, lemon
yellow, orange, dark maroon, light pink — the palette is generously replete
with spring paints for sure.
Options are galore to explore in a florist shop or
online to splurge on exotic flowers to add an element of difference to your
proposal bouquet. Peony, carnation, gerbera, rhododendron, baby breath,
chrysanthemum, edelweiss, orchid, pansy, lotus, poppy among others might just blow
your mind away but sometimes, it really pays to keep things simple and
conventional. You know that, don’t you!
The City of Joy knows how to usher
in the spring with a burst of colours, flavours, aromas and melodies amid a
flurry of activity marking celebration and festivities. It’s vasantotsav after all! From the serene
sylvan hamlets of Shantiniketan to the formidable precincts of the Tagores in
the region down to Kolkata’s kaleidoscopic nooks and corners, Bengal is drowned
in the beauty of spring sprinkling its wonderful splendours all across its
district towns and remote hinterlands. Its mirth as if knows no bounds!
Love is in the Air!
Romance doesn’t need an excuse to pop up from nowhere. In the season of love, it’s a usual picture to sight couples walking hand in hand down the lanes and by-lanes, exchanging soul-touching notes, offering roses as the symbolic flower of love, revisiting sweet-scented reminiscences, soaking in the perfumed nostalgia and creating new moments to cherish forever.
From the old-school love sonnet poets to today’s novella writers, from the everlasting classics to trendy bestsellers, all but pursue a perfect setting to script a never-told love story. Does the IT province in the City of Joy with its alluring food street play an apt backdrop to blossom a new-age love saga among the current-day out-and-about techie lads and lasses?
“Well, if you are in true love, everyday could be precious to switch on that mood to brood over romance and express your heartfelt feelings to your significant other. You don’t require a particular month, week or a day like the Valentine’s Day (14th February) or a Vasant Panchami festival (hosting Saraswati Puja to worship the goddess of speech and learning and commemorate the advent of spring) to make it special for your dearest one,” debates call centre employee Bhaskar Sen of a local BPO office.
Abhijit Roy from Starhealth Allied Insurance Company echoes a similar sentiment. “I don’t look for a pretext to take my friends out for a treat or a gal pal to a food joint close by. You can find love and smell it everyday everywhere if you have a genuine zest for that pure emotion,” he espouses.
On his way to catch the homebound bus from the stand located a few yards away, Roy doesn’t forget to remind us that he mainly prefers “ghar ka khana (homecooked food)” and only once in a while, samples “biscuits, wafers, cookies, cakes and other evening snacks” from the streetside carts while having his tea on the wooden benches along with his gang of buddies.
Two to Tango
Anshika scampers in the direction of a shimul tree along the stretch connecting the city railway station nearby. Her ‘shutterbug’ eyes freeze-frame the canopy of an artistic tree, seemingly bathed in a splash of vermillion. “Wow! This is breathtakingly beautiful,” she mutters. Simultaneously, a palm holding a cell phone lifts it slowly to get the correct view. The finger touches the screen to zoom in on the subject, adjusts the lens slightly and clicks the camera icon in a trice. ‘Khaataak!’ goes the sound. The snapper takes a much-coveted shot and is overly jubilant about his sudden feat. “Guess what! At last, I caught you,” beams Dhruv in jest, twitching his eyebrows.
Anshika quickly quips: “Very funny!”
“Hey! Don’t believe me? Here you go mademoiselle,” insists Dhruv, flashing
the photo from his phone gallery.
A demure damsel clad in a light blue kurti and a pair of bottle green
jeggings with a sling bag and a bandhni
dupatta cozily draped around her neck and torso admires the tree in
stupefied silence. Standing underneath its lateral branches spread out in all
possible directions, Anshika gapes in wonder and bends a little forward to
touch and feel a clump of petals swaying to the spring breeze at a lower level.
It is at this precise pose that her photograph was taken.
One glance at the picture made her blush immediately
as she looked cutely pretty on the gadget screen. Dhruv’s chosen angle was
perfect and his device did complete justice to his vision. She tries hard to
hide her shyness that further induces a tad awkwardness. Now they both remain
under the tree in close proximity wrapped in a blanket of silence.
The two sauntered for an afternoon walk post a garam chai (hot tea) break, a breakaway
from their usual routine as Saturdays are half working days with lighter loads
on their shoulders. Before slipping into a weekend Sunday holiday mode and
again rewinding to the Monday morning blues for a grueling grind of experiments
and in-depth researches, the duo tried to pep up their mood to recharge their energy
batteries.
“Wish I could steal a pinch of sindoor from the lustrous redness of shimul and offer you to apply on your forehead as a bindi and urge you to mark the area from
where your hair parted at the middle,” utters Dhruv yearningly in a breath. His
wishful thinking is a long-cherished desire safely ensconced in his heart-locker
for over all these years. With a nervy voice, he entreats Anshika for a selfie,
his heart skipping a beat.
But his edginess soon disappears as his lady love obliges his bold request with
a charming smile. Probably, this would be their first ‘usie’ or a ‘duofie’ as
love doves. He puts his arm around her shoulders, draws her a bit closer and
she moves in, tilting her head towards him. Click goes the gizmo again but this
time, the two are nabbed together in the net of love. The heavens may pray and
bless the couple with a downpour of floral flakes but the besotted birds are
apparently oblivious of this imaginative possibility, quite lost in each
other’s presence.
Anshika now slowly shuts her eyes, dreaming of a
fairytale in silhouette, delineated by divinity. Their human figures and the
tree trunk with its branches are clearly darkened under a starlit sky with a
crescent white moon neatly painted across its dusky canvas. Only the curvy
shade of shimul phool is intact with its
crimson red colour as a sprawling marquee overhead. She fantasises Dhruv going
down on his knees with a bouquet of seasonal blooms in hand to pop the
question. Yes, he gently opens a small heart-shaped red velvety box to pluck a
sparkling diamond ring out of its satin bed only to slip it on Anshika’s
finger, whose eyes are understandably glistening with happiness.
By the by, though this mushy, romantic filmi scene is a far cry from reality
in public place for both the colleagues-cum-friends of a scientific research
firm, the woman knows for a fact that her answer would be ‘I do and I will’
to her proposing man’s ‘Do you love me and will you marry me?’ query. The very
thought sends shivers down her spine and she instantly feels a whiff of
fragrance floating around her.
A feather fluttered her fringes and glided against
her cheeks. “This must be love and hope it is never over,” she prays crossing
her fingers and evidently altering the lyrics of popular Swedish pop rock music
band Roxette’s eternal love anthem in her mind.
Holi
Hai!
Come March-end, and the festival of colours — Holi —
will add more radiance and vibrancy to the spring hues with the spirit of
amity, adoration, passion, fondness, softness, close bonding and devotion. “With
eco-friendliness being the current recipe for success in every domain, green
products are flooding the merchandising markets and the gifting industry as
‘hero goods’. From non-chemical, natural Holi colours to herbal snacks and
sweets, pure vegan diet, organic farm produce and Ayurveda cuisine — environmental
consciousness is gathering steam like never before,” shares a retailer from
Delhi’s busy Connaught Place.
Faith
& Festival
You may hear a flock of birds chirping, flapping wings and merrily flying around, especially the whistling koel (cuckoo). You could slow down and gaze at the clear cerulean sky. It’s the month of falgun or phagun after all, denoting the peak of spring! Whether you are in holy Brajbhumi (a region in Uttar Pradesh) now or exploring the religious sites, doing darshan (idol-viewing) at the sacred Hindu temples and taking a spiritual dip in Vrindavan, Dwarka or Mathura, you could never possibly miss playing a wet Holi or get smeared with a dry flower spray, reliving the legends of Lord Krishna, and his most favourite consort and beloved Radha, to indulge in some deep faith and celebrate the colourful festivity with much enthusiasm.
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