By: Barnali Bose, Editor-ICN Group
KOLKATA: “Nothing is so beautiful as Spring,” says the English poet,Gerard Manley Hopkins.Spring is a miraculous experience. Nature regains life after Winter makes an exit. The nightingale bursts into a melodious tune amidst the world that had seemed so dull.
Silently beneath the cold hard ground the plants and trees had been preparing to return with renewed vigour.
Spring gives us hope for rejuvenation in our own lives as well. It is a time to renew the excitement and zest for life that thrives inside us.
Holi or “Dol” ushers the season of Spring or “Basanta” that signifies abundance.Basant Utsav, is an annual event celebrated in Shantiniketan where Rabindranath Tagore established the Vishwa Bharati University.
Bengalis celebrate “ Dol Yatra” by smearing ‘aabir’( dry colours) on one another and offering sweets.”Dol” in Bengali means swing and “yatra” means journey. It denotes the journey of Radha Krishna in a palanquin after Krishna smeared her face with colours.
Spring is welcomed with singing and dancing to soulful Tagore’s songs and dashing of colourful ‘aabir’ ( no liquid colours are used). It is a harvest festival in Bengal.
Dressed in traditional yellow attire, the revellers adorn themselves with local shimul flower ornaments and join a customary early morning procession termed ’Prabhat Pheri’.
In the Purulia district, folk dance performances of Chau, Darbari, Natua and Jhumur mark the Spring festival.All over Bengal, colours colour the day of one and all.
As a child , I would often wonder why Dol or Holi is celebrated the way it is .While on all other festivals we wear our best attires,on Holi we wear ordinary ones.We dash colours on one another and derive great joy from the pranks we play on one another.
Hardly anyone is recognizable as the colours of Dol (Holi ) erase facial differences. All revellers look identical. The festival eradicates differences between the rich and the poor, the fair and the dark, the big and the small, helping to build new bonds and mend seemingly unbridgeable ones.