Spring Reminds Me of The Koel’s Songs And A Simpler Life

DEP Spring Contest Prompt: How Spring inspires you?

Koel is not really a pretty bird. Yet, that’s the one prime connection between spring and my childhood.

I grew up in India and even though winters were mild where I come from, the onset of spring was a welcoming relief because I loved observing the change of seasons.

Now that I think of it, I realize, I was a very observant child. I observed all the changes in seasons and the corresponding changes in nature minutely.

The Seasons

Where I grew up, in the eastern part of India, we were fortunate to have six seasons in a year. Yes, you read that right.

Six seasons and not four.

I have heard that Japan has 72 micro seasons, each season consisting of roughly 5 days.

While celebrating 72 micro seasons would have been great, experiencing six seasons was also great because, in India, we mark each season with festivities and events.

The three prominent seasons are —

• Summer,
• Monsoon, and
• Winter

And the three micro seasons are —

• Spring (Basanta),
• Fall (Sharad), and
• Pre-winter (Hemanta)

A Longing

While each season is important because of different reasons, spring is always a special one for me.

Because spring reminds me of a simpler life that embraces a back to basics lifestyle. A life where you didn’t have to keep up with the joneses. A life without constant rush or crazy deadlines, a life where smartphones, social media, or productivity apps didn’t exist, and a life that connects you with nature.

Even though winters were shorter and milder compared to the colder countries, winter still had its discomfort. Our houses are built to withstand the heat of long summer but don’t come with heaters and running hot water. Heck, for a long time, we didn’t even have a toilet inside our house!

So the onset of spring was always a welcome relief, like coming out of a cave. Days would start to become longer and doors and windows would always be open as if we all lived in indoor-outdoor houses.

You could hear the radio in your neighbor's house or the pressure cooker sizzling.

You could hear the laughter of the children playing outside, feel the morning breeze on your face while you hang laundry on the clothesline on your terrace, or bargain with the fishmonger who has caught great fish the last night and brought his catch this morning in a small cycle van.

I loved to brush my teeth outside on our third-floor terrace (where my father had built a small bathroom) while looking at all the coconut trees, brittle nut trees, guava trees, and mango trees in our backyard.

I loved soaking in the morning sun and walking and talking with my imaginary friends and the trees on the terrace. After coming back from school, I would again rush back to the terrace. That was my favorite space in the house. It felt like heaven and my haven. Summer was too hot to be outside on the terrace, you would get a sunburn.

I had no toys, no gadgets, and no phone to play with. Just my imagination and those trees.

We had a big pond behind our house. It was almost like a lake, but it wasn’t that deep. All the people in the neighborhood would spend their afternoons, especially on weekends, on and around that pond.

After a few colder months, spring was the time when people would start congregating at the pond and cleansing their bodies and houses.

The children loved splashing on the water or running behind the ice cream seller, climbing the mango trees, or guava trees in the neighborhood, stealing the unripe mangoes or guavas, and relishing them in the already hot spring afternoons.

The season of spring brings back the longing I have for the simplicity of my childhood days.

The Celebrations

We Indians are known for our colorful celebrations and spring is no different.

The month of February began with a 4-day-long Hare Krishna Kirtan (a musical recitation of hymns and mantras) in our neighborhood.

There was a huge playground near our house. A big tent would be set up for the performers of the Kirtana and the audience.

I am still amazed at how these singers chanted Hare Krishna at the top of their voices all day long until midnight, resting for just a few hours, and starting again at the crack of dawn, and with such devotion.

I don’t think I will appreciate the loudspeakers anymore, definitely not at 4.00 in the morning, but at that time, that was a symbol of the beginning of a new season.

I would accompany my grandmother to these Kirtans, even though I understood nothing about religion. I was mostly there for all the goodies and the snacks the sellers were selling, that my grandmother would buy me.

We didn’t have a lot of wealth, we didn’t have a lot of material comfort, and we rarely ate out. When you don’t have much, these small tidbits can seem delicious and precious.

And then there was Holi — the festival of color. If you have heard of the famous Bengali poet and Nobel laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore, you may have also heard of Shantiniketan — his abode and a university town.

He literally coined the term “Basanta Utsav” which means Spring Celebration and tied it with Holi, celebrating spring and its hues. It’s a big event in Shantiniketan where many tourists come to experience this.

You can see a glimpse of a “Basanta Utsav” in Shantinikatn in this short video — a song written by and the music composed by the famous poet himself (It’s in Bengali though).

It’s also the time when the birthday of the Nobel laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore coincides. For every Bengali, his birthday is a special event, celebrated in all the schools and neighborhoods, clubs, etc.

Like the French, we have a great literary culture, where even young children know a lot about literature, poetry, poets, and their lives.

So his birthday meant a few weeks of rehearsals and practices for music, drama, or theatre where both adults and children participated.

Spring is also the time when we celebrate a new year. In India, we follow a lunar calendar, where a new year starts in mid-April, usually on the 15th of April. We greet each other with “Subho Nabobarsho”, which is “Happy New Year” in Bengali.

The Nature

Spring meant and still means Koel’s song. I would wake up most mornings with the Koel singing. It’s such a sweet melody that you have to listen to it to believe it.

A lot of children, like me, would copy the sound it makes — “the kuwu”, and it would sing louder, thinking, perhaps, it has found its mate.

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influence of the earth.” — Henry David Thoreau

Nature is at its best in spring when the bougainvillea and the flame of the forest (Palash) bloom and create a riot of color. The fragrance of jasmine floating in the air would make my heart beat with unexplained longing and joy.

It’s also the time for a seasonal storm named “Kal Baishakhi” in the month of April.

We ate mostly seasonals and local because we had no refrigerators back then and also no supermarkets. So there wasn’t a lot of cold storage.

My father used to go to the local market almost every morning for fresh fruits, vegetables, or fish. It was the jackfruit or lychee season. I hated the jackfruit as a fruit but I devour it as a vegetable. The jackfruit curry (like rendang) is such a delicacy.

Some Steps

I have taken some steps in my life recently to bring back this simple life:

• I don’t check my phone during the first few hours in the morning.
• I still write my to-do lists using pen and paper.
• I journal every morning (well, almost) in my notebook.
• I still use an analog calendar to jot down our family's events and schedules instead of synchronizing our digital calendar. It stays in the kitchen as a reminder that we can still live a simple life.
• Pull away all the curtains and let the natural light do its work.
• Reduce the temperature in the thermostat and wear an extra layer instead (especially since the Ukraine war has started), just like we did growing up when we had no heating at home.
• Leave the windows and doors in the backyard open in spring and summer as much as possible to let the fresh air in and create this indoor-outdoor culture I grew up with. We don’t have air conditioning in most houses in the Netherlands. This is the natural way of ventilation.
• Make our own herbs garden and a very small vegetable patch in our backyard. The cherry tomatoes, the lettuce, or the chilies taste much better from the garden. And it feels so good to connect with nature.

As I write this from my living room couch I can look outside at the cherry blossom, magnolia, tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths. I can hear the chirping of the birds. While it’s not a Koel, it does remind me of it and my childhood. Because my spring starts and ends at Koel’s song.

If you have never heard of a Koel singing, you can hear it here:

Many thanks to DEP editors, Dr. Gabriella Korosi, Vidya Sury, Collecting Smiles, and Dr. Preeti Singh, and the DEP spring contest sponsor DR Rawson - The Possibilist.

If you would like to participate, here’s how to do that:

I loved this article by Sanghita Pal on the season of spring and its influence on her.

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