The season of Spring—Aaha aji e basante..

The season of spring, the season of romanticism and the festivity of colour, Holi is just round the corner. We may or may not play the festival Holi but we cannot stop loving this festival of colour. As we all know this spring season is best enjoyed in Bengal in Shantiniketan the blessed land of Gurudev where Holi manifest a different fabric of enjoyment. This time love is in the air and our minds dance in the groove of Bihu with Tagore songs …”Aha aji e basante..”

In this facebook generation when the quantity of “likes” determine the quality of the status update, we misconstrue the meaning of like perse. Although liking and loving are synonymous but are widely separated as the river separate the banks. In common parlance we like someone when he or she satisfies our emotions, whereas we love someone when we sacrifice ourself to satisfy his her emotions. So the direction of emotion is towards the other side in case of love and directed to self in case of like. It implies that when liking is self enjoyable love stands as embodiment of sacrifice.

I deliberately have chosen this song of Tagore “Aaha aji e basante..” because this song has a strange melancholy pain revealed in the concluding para of the song. Though the Bengali feel cannot be translated but the essence of the song describes the romantic beautiful environment of the amazing spring, the varied inflorescence and the return of the birds to the branches. But still in this springtime also there is pain, there is desperation and we wish away that suffering, shrug off those tears from our shoulder and jump into the festivity overlooking the hardships around. This is very unlike the sacrifice I referred to in the preceding paragraph, the sacrifice for love sake.

Anyway, I would like to conclude in line with the words of Tagore “Sukhe ache jara sukhe thak tara”….those who are in blissful joy, let them continue to be in joy and happiness… Wish everyone a very colorful Holi, be happy and enjoy the festival with everyone.