Let's party, says nature!

 

Let's party, says nature!

Spring 2021 in Northern Hemisphere will begin on

Saturday, 20 March

and ends on

Monday, 21 June

All dates are in India Standard Time.

says Google this morning. I guess Google does not know everything after all. For one, April, May and June are hot summer months in this sub - tropic region.

Secondly, four weeks ago on the fifth day of Shukla Paksha, (fortnight of the waxing moon) in Magh i.e., January – February in the Hindu calendar or on February 16 this year, we celebrated Vasant or Basant (spring) Panchami in our country. Those who follow the rituals wore yellow, prepared yellow delicacies like boondi (sugar-soaked globules of chickpea flour), besan laddos (chickpea flour sweet balls), zarda (sweet saffron rice) and kesari baath (yellow halwa in the southern states) etc..

They worshipped Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, speech and learning with yellow flowers. Little children were given their first writing instruments-pens, pencils, kalam, gold or silver wires, to hold and to write the first alphabet of their learning lives. There were prayers offered to the goddess to ‘remove darkness of ignorance and to bless with eternal knowledge and wisdom.’ Some others also worshipped Lord Krishna who loved this season so much that in the Bhagwad Gita discourse he told Arjuna :

मासानां मार्गशीर्षोsहमृतुनाम् कुसुमाकरः

(Masanam Margashirshohamritunaam Kusumakara -Among the months I am the month of Margsheersh, among the seasons, I am Spring.)

If schools were not working online due to the pandemic, there would have been competitions in creative writing, declamations, debates and other cultural activities during this time.  

Sufi saints Nizamuddin Auliya and poet Amir Khusro have also written about Basant. Not only that, it is the festival of the whole of the sub-continent. Bangladesh celebrates the onset of spring or Pohela Falgun.

On the other hand, the craze for kite-flying on Basant in Pakistan now attracts more attention than the spring festival in any other form. It is said that the kite-makers declare one day in the cool months of February-March as Basant and that is the  day they try to make up for all the dull business of the preceding winter months and stuff up their wallets. Of course, kite-flying has its own issues what with the fight to cut the others’ threads with metal or glass coated strings, sometimes even power break-downs as the paper fairies get stuck in the cables, accidents as people fall off the roofs or ugly brawls over use of foul means to win.

Haven’t we all written essays on the saying Ayi Basant pala udant (as spring comes winter bids goodbye) in school? Spring is not just one day but a whole season. In the mind the word Basant conjures up bright and beautiful images in nature. Blooming mustard crop in the fields (Punjab is known for that), the trees in all their glory laden with blooms, singing of birds, especially the koel which is partial to the flowering mango trees, a blast of colours with flowering geraniums, dahlias, chrysanthemums, petunias and sweet peas etc., flitting butterflies and humming bumblebees, tiny kittens and fresh litter of dogs following their mothers around, everything makes your heart sing. People finally say goodbye to woolens and throng the beauty parlours to get cleaned up of all the winter debris.

With moderate temperatures and more sunlight, it is easier to take a walk in the park or start following your exercise routine. Shoppers too love this time of end of season sales.

It seems as if everything that had been chilled into stupefying inactivity suddenly bursts into life. I am not going into the meteorological or astronomical explanations of spring, suffice to say, the season just means renewal, re-growth and rebirth.   

Yet forced by my years of grilling in the newsroom that both sides of the story be told, let me tell you that like any other celebration or party, Rituraj (the king of seasons), brings gloom to some of us.

Yes, you may include among them: students preparing for their final examinations, teachers dreading the laborious job of corrections and preparation of results, tax-payers unhappy to see a large chunk of their March income going into the tax pit, businessmen worrying about the figures at the end of the financial year and accountants of all genres losing their sleep over balance sheets.

Yet my sympathies are especially with those for whom the abundance of flowers spells malaise and illness. As the season changes, I see a family member, a dear friend and a close relative all going into dopey, sleepy existence with heavy doses of anti-histamines. Spring does not make them creative; on the contrary due to spring and pollen allergies, it renders them helpless, tired and irritated. Runny/stuffed nose, itchy eyes, sore dry throat and fatigue do not herald spring in their hearts. Ask any asthma patient and they might tell you they prefer the dead of summer or winter! The microscopic pollen from the flower plants, trees and weeds is the culprit for the allergic rhinitis.

In India there is no definite fall season after summer or before winter. Just about the time flowers bloom in spring, the deciduous trees decide it is time for them to go through their annual exercise of change of attire. Woe betide those who have a peepal tree in their house. For all the oxygen that these bodhi trees produce or the CO2 they absorb, in two months of February and March they stop their ghostly clapping of leaves and get rid of them unemotionally and slowly. Gathering up dry leaves flying around with the gusts of wind by the sackfuls does not tempt me to break into Hafeez Jalandhari’s poem lo phir basant aayi (lo, spring has come again) a la Mallika Pukhraj.

I wonder why can’t the Indian weather gods be clear if they want to be kind and gentle or dry and cruel. Don’t believe me? Look outside the window. The fresh delicate sprigs of grass are getting covered with the falling dry leaves by the end of the day though it has been spring for the past few weeks.

It also gets a little tricky in the kitchen. Because it is time for the winter vegetable plants to grow seeds to start the next generation, the freshness is gone; most of them too ripe to eat, have lost their taste. We opt for early summer vegetables which are not only expensive, but also look like children forced to grow up fast and like the other food items abundant in any season, would soon turn boring and unappealing.

All this and yet this time in the calendar has to be passed with courage. My suggestion if you love nature at its best, let it do its job. Just stay inside and appreciate it through a glass window.

Close the windows of the car when driving.

Dust everything in the house more frequently. Do not do that yourself, seek help.

If need be, do not hesitate to use an air purifier.

You might be wearing masks to breathe easy, yet it is also helpful to take a bath before you go to bed at night to clean the body and hair of all dust and pollen and have a good night’s sleep.

Somebody also suggested that people who suffer from pollen or spring allergies should dry their clothes inside the house, so that pollen from outside does not deposit on your clothes as they dry.

Believe me, after preparing several kinds of decoctions to soothe the throat and seeing antitussives, nasal sprays, anti-congestants, menthol balms, analgesic and anti-histamine tablets, besides wads of tissues scattered on the shelves in our house and listening to sounds of coughing, sneezing and clearing of throat some months in a year, I know what I am talking about.

                                                                                                                          - Anupama S Mani