Of Colours, Birds and Poetry in the Spring - Shivani Mohan (INDIA) / Khaleej Times 25 March 2010

It is spring time, when colour and radiance sneak through a bleak grey winter, bringing sunshine and abundance all around. The gardens are awash with a riot of colours. While the season sets many onto other worldly pursuits, it brings out the poet in some. All around woollens and quilts are being spread out in the sun before they can be mothballed and packed in boxes till the advent of next winter. Housewives are busy drying spring vegetables such as carrots, turnip and cauliflower to create a stunning sweet and sour pickle that would perk up an insipid meal in the coming months. Over the centuries, spring season has held its special effect on people’s senses. Poets have gone into raptures over the beauty and mystique of this season.  It is almost as if each bloom is an evidence of life in progression. Each bumble bee sucking nectar from a flower reminds you of the interplay of nature to keep the world alive. Each plaintive cry of the cuckoo is a reminder to value your loved ones. There was a movement called the Romantic movement in English literature that dominated most of 19th century English literature highlighting strong emotion as an authentic source of aesthetic experience. Some of the leading exponents of this movement were poets such as William Wordsworth, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Lord Byron and John Keats. Common themes in their work include the reconciliation between man and nature characterised by an emotional response to beauty, as opposed to pure logic and reason. Robert Browning so aptly summed up the magic of this season in: The year’s at the spring, And day’s at the morn; Morning’s at seven; The hill-side’s dew-pearled; The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn; God’s in his Heaven - All’s right with the world! Spring means optimism, progress and new beginnings. It is a season when it is almost unthinkable to be away from your loved ones, as Shakespeare said eloquently in Sonnet 98: From you have I been absent in the spring When proud-pied April, dress’d in all  his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything, That heavy Saturn laugh’d and leap’d  with him. Eastern sensibilities too spoke of enjoying the bounties of spring with a loved one. Who can forget the beautiful ghazal by Faiz Ahmed Faiz: Gulon mein rang bhare, baad- e  naubahaar chale, Chale bhi aao ke gulshan ka kar obaar chale. (The flowers are bursting with colours while a cool spring  breeze flows, Oh! Beloved come soon, so that the garden can commence its  business today.) Such is the romantic allure of this season that while the footloose and fancy free go about their business of wooing loved ones, the jaded and much married take solace in some distant memory. It is almost as if Shakespeare mocks this yearning to be in love that accompanies this season in ‘Love’s Labour Lost’: When daisies pied, and violets blue, And lady-smocks all silver-white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then, on every tree, Mocks married men, for thus sings he: “Cuckoo! Cuckoo, cuckoo!” O word of fear, Unpleasing to a married ear. Seeing so much beauty around sometimes puts you in a philosophical mood. Wordsworth pointed out in his ‘Lines Written in Early Spring’: Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths; And ‘tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. As we pursue our worldly goals of acquiring that next big car, that penthouse, that promotion, these lines certainly bring out the bigger picture. There is a higher meaning, a greater force that guides the universe.  He then adds: If this belief from heaven be sent, If such be Nature’s holy plan, Have I not reason to lament What man has made of man? There’s so much to know and learn from nature. It is difficult to stay indoors when there’s so much  happening outside. My enthusiasm about spring is a bit lower the next week as I am caught with a strange coughing problem that seems to have no cure. After several rounds of antibiotics and antihistamines I setup an appointment with the best ENT specialist in town. After thoroughly examining my case the doctor dispels the mystery, “It’s all that pollen in the air. Maybe you have an allergy to flowers!” So now I stay indoors waiting for spring to get over and shudder at the sight of flowers. In this largely cynical and sterile world, the last of the innocent pleasures of life are fast disappearing. Shivani Mohan is an India- based writer. For comments,  write to opinion@khaleejtimes.com