Warmth, Colors and Greens...

Mom has always loved Spring, she has her birthday in Spring. She says she loves the fresh greenery, and green, being her favorite color, there is enough reason to love this season...

I never really loved Spring that much...Autumn has always been my favorite and so, silently inside me, I have always felt Spring to be a competitor of Autumn. Many say there's not much difference between the two seasons...but when I look at it on the canvas of my city, I see a lot of difference...

Spring is all about the goodbyes to Winter...goodbye to the seasons of coolness, picnics, slanting suns...Spring paves the way to a hot and sultry summer in Kolkata which never seems to end.

But then, away from my city, I know what Spring used to bring to us...and I miss it so!

My father used to tell this story to me and my sister quite often...the story of Spring (or Proserpina) and Pluto (the king of the underworld)...A simple Greek story which we both loved so much! And, whenever winter paved the way for spring, we used to remember Proserpina and how she ate the pomegranate seeds.

Spring in Kolkata is the shortest season...you can never catch the days when you actually leave your fat winter blankets and start wearing lighter clothes...

Spring mostly comes in around Saraswati Puja (the special day for the goddess of learning and music) and Holi (the festival of colors).

Guys in college say Saraswati Puja is the Bengali Valentines' Day. Girls, aged nine to twenty nine wear saree on this day. Almost for everyone, this is the first day after winter when they go out without sweaters, even at night, ignoring the little nip which is still left in the breeze.

Soon after, it's a common picture in all the lanes of Kolkata - washed sweaters hanging on the clothesline, blankets out in the sun, ready to be warmed and packed back where they stay for another year, more open windows even after sunset, lesser badminton tournaments on the streets. Coming to that, badminton rackets start getting packed and kept on the top of cupboards for another reason - exam time! Spring, is thus, quite a dreaded season for students. It's not nice to come out of a cuddly winter season, give up sweaters, give up playing on the streets and starting to sit indoors with piles of books worrying about studies and exams.

But another festival steals the show - Holi! Getting drenched with colored waters and going mad on the streets and roof-tops is something that everyone looks forward to at the end of winter. After a long time, no worries about catching a cold, no worries about getting drenched...as all these are officially allowed now!

Spring is short but it touches lives of Kolkata people so much that even poets have not forgotten to write about it. New flowers, new leaves on the trees, sunnier mornings, longer days, warmer nights...and cold water bottles again in the fridge, frootis, ice creams, cold tap water and high speed fans in every room...this is what Kolkata Spring is all about!

Away from home, I miss those warm Spring days when we used to come back home from school and college to be ordered around by mom to change and rush for the cold lassi one day...or yummy ampanna the next day...but ice cubes were a must! After all, it warm again now...and winter's gone...

I miss the nascent warmth now, I miss Kolkata all over once more...