Come April —dil panchhi ban uddjaata hai !

chill winter gone, heat of the summer yet to creep in, weather at its best, land at its most beautiful with the woods dressed anew… …flaming kinsuka trees with their striking beauty, setting the woods on flames … droning bees dancing around the flowers …

the azure mornings’ silky south wind blowing sweet with mango scent …blowing so cool ...., as a poet mused, “as though stooping itself into itself / to inhale its own aroma at ease”

amidst the rustling of Pepal (fig tree) leaves, there the birds of varied hues,chirping to their own rhyme …

full blown jasmine buds delighting the sense of smell……cuckoo from this tree calling the cuckoo on that tree …their sweet kuhoo  kuhoo  callings raising waves within the heart…nature looking very benign —verily like the feminine—nainon mein nayarang laayi bahaar —bringing in new colours in which…o / dole man mora sajanaa / dole man mora / ho ji huo…mind is swinging in that highly romantic atmosphere…

everything at its splendid beauty…indeed, intoxicated by bahaar everyone started crooning and dancing in ecstasy—Koyal kukati jaaye ban mein mor bhi gaaye—peacocks too dancing to the songs of cuckoos

sanskrit  poets of yore were more charged by Vasant …they saw a certain sense of excitement in the breeze blowing from the south—the romance, the gaiety, nature’s finest manifestation in all her beauty, in harmony with each other, afresh—

at the arrival of Vasant, Kalidasa mused: “young creepers with blossom buds of mangoes appearing as if bent, like the practising dancer’s gesticulations exhilarating the minds of even those who had overcome feud and the mischief of Cupid” …

even Sri Rama could not but get swayed by Vasant—and wonder: matta kokila sannadaiah nartayan iva padapan / saila kandara niskranatah pragita iva ca anilah—breeze blowing out from the mountain caves accompanied by the crooning lusty black cuckoos making the trees dance, and the air itself is singing as though an accompaniment to the dancing trees.

looking at the fully flowered Karnikaran plants, Rama wonders: these plants, with golden color flowers all

over, look like men, wearing golden ornaments on their upper body standing with yellow loin cloth.

and suddenly remembering Sita, he laments: ayam vasantah saumitre nana vihaga naditah / sitaya viprahinasya soka sandipano mama—this spring with the songs of so many birds, oh! Soumitri, is enkindling grief in me, for Sita is disunited… he goes on crying… 

Pasya Lakshmana— see Lakshmana, nrtyanantam mayuram upanrtyati / sikhani manmatha artaih esa bhartaram giri sanuni—on that mountain terrace this peahen longing for love is dancing nearby that peacock—her husband….  spreading his beautiful wings and screaming as though joking, even that peacock is longingly, running after his female….. for,[?] mayurasya vane nunam raksasa na hrita  priya —no demon has abducted his lady love—so he is nrtyati ramyesu vanesu saha kantaya—dancing with her in the beautiful forest….

how true! as a poet wondered—“Vasant (spring) is beautiful only when there is harmony— harmony with which human nature accompanies physical nature’s change. else sadness is sure to enter even the world of spring. and even Rama is no exception to the natures’ law—when he is separated from his beloved Sita … the resulting disharmony has only made his heart sad even in Vasant … indeed Vasant—sweet crooning of Koyals, mango-scented cool breeze, fully flowered Karnikaran plants dancing in the breeze, fragrance of the flowers, all this sweetness in the nature had only made it more unbearable… more crucifying… to Rama even….