basanta utsav in black & white _ muktodhara

BASANTA UTSAV IN BLACK & WHITEPOSTED BY: Shubhashis Mitra COMMENTS: 5 Comments

BASANTA UTSAV IN BLACK & WHITE

Exactly when the Basanta Utsav was conceived and executed

by Rabindranath Tagore in Santiniketan cannot be confirmed;

but i t is said that in 1907AD, Vasanta Utsava was fi rst

celebrated on Basanta Panchami day. Seasonal festivals of

Santiniketan started to take shape by that decade, sometimes

urged by Samindranth the youngest son of Rabindranath, at

times just to l iven up the spir i t of the Tapovana styled school.

Rabindranath was natural ly very much absorbed in

experimenting and innovating ideas in his school and the

concept of Visva Bharati Universi ty was just taking shape

then.

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Basanta Utsav at Amrakunja, pr ior to the days of Jawhar Bedi,

was arranged on the f loor of Amrakunja on Alpona decorated

ground, to stage the pulsating song & dance recitals to invoke

spring. Perhaps at that time the procession dance was not in

vogue. The presence of Palash flower remains the identi fying

factor for photographs being related to Basanta Utsav. This is

supposed to be the only photograph of Rabindranath at

Basanta Utsav at Rabindra Bhavan archives; the identi fying

factor here has been the two Palash sticks adorning the flower

vase on the ground. The stage d;cor looks real ly beauti ful; a

fragrance of the simpl istic yet deeply involved l i fe style of that

era.

Hol i , the bri l l iant episode of love & frol ic of Radha & Krishna,

is a national festival of India, being observed with much glee

from almost time immemorial . I t is a sheer wonder how

Rabindranath Tagore transformed that festival into the

celebration of season spring aided by a few songs and the

innovative dance movements created by the dance teachers of

that era. None other than Nandalal Bose & Surendranath Kar

continuously developed the dress-sense for this festival .

The snap above appears to be of a much later era, considering

the presence of the rather large spectator group. Compared to

the f i rst photograph this one contains more grown up ladies;

suggesting that i t was an era when boys and girls were

equal ly represented in Santiniketan.

I t wil l be interesting to note here that when the

Bramhacharya-ashram was an al l boys school; Rabindranath



persuaded a dance teacher from Manipur to join the school, yet

could not proclaim that he was starting a dance course in his

school, because i t was unthinkable of boys to take part in

dance in the civi l ized society of Bengal. The impression given

to the guardians was that ÈPhysical Dri l l ingÍ classes were

being introduced.

Much later when ÈNatir PujaÍ was staged in Kolkata for the

f irst time on a commercial opera house, Gouri Bhanja being

the Nati and natural ly the leading/ only lady dancer in that

play; the audience at Kolkata got stunned by watching a

Bengal i lady dance on stage! At that time no lady from a

respectable family dared to dance in a publ ic show on stage. I t

was a path breaking effort from Santiniketan. Natural ly

Rabindranath was much acclaimed by stalwarts of theatre

world of Kolkata for this pioneering venture; and also severely

cri ticized, especial ly by women groups, for al lowing

respectable ladies to dance on stage. These specif ic groups

lamented the moral degradation of the Bengal i civi l ized

society! To be more categorical Rabindranath Tagore created a

platform on which boys and girls of Bengal could actual ly

dance with a stunningly beauti ful and dignif ied grace.

Basanta Utsav is actual ly a creation of a l iving form of art; a

painting on the l iving canvass of l i fe, executed only in our

own Santiniketan.

Basanta Utsav at Amra Kunja had i tÍs own f lavour as the

presence of generous number of mostly mango trees created

intr icate nook and corners for the spectators; provided quite a

few bends and turns for the procession dancers. Dancing in

open nature is a very di f ferent stimulation of aesthetic

dynamics than dancing on erected stages. The natural

ambience of Amrakunja was never recreated when the festival

shif ted to other venues. These daysÍ students of Patha Bhavan



are trying to recreate the old mood of Basanta Utsav by

celebrating Basanta Abahan at Amrakunja, the invoking of

spring, in more or less the same format, without ofcourse

using the colouring powder Abir. Last year I attended Basanta

Abahan by Patha Bhavan students and i t was beauty of

Santiniketan at i ts best.

I do not know who this lovely lady is, in this great col lage of

successive Basanta Utsavs in Santiniketan. I f she is looking

from somewhere at this photograph, I would l ike to thank her

immensely for again coming al ive amongst us with such

grace and beauty. For al l of us i t has always been scinti l lating

to feel our inner beauty at perfect synchronization with the

mystic smiles of spring; i t was always sweetly pulsating to let

music and dance drown our senses; i t was always a sheer joy

to embrace others with plenty of colour.



I was fair ly bemused at this snap! I distinctly remembered that

in our days kids were al lowed to go for this ÈKathi NachÍ(Stick

Dance); a simpl istic one than the one performed by the elder

students. Usual ly there used to be a huge fracas, as the more

wild ones among we kids, invariably used the sticks to

playful ly hi t the others around him. We even tried our hands

at pul l ing down the Dhotis of others with a l i ttle tug of the

sticks! Considering the tremendous trouble endeared by we

kids, when elders painstakingly draped us with this incredible

wizardry cal led a Dhoti ; pul l ing down the Dhoti was really a

catastrophe for us. So we used to be ex tra careful to protect our

pride; and hence the period before the procession dance, we

used to be super alert to foi l such evi l designs by our

mischievous fr iends. That was hi larious time. We enjoyed

every ounce of those moments. When the procession dance

started we just f lowed in to the scene l ike l i ttle angels on

f l ight!

When a kid, we always were amazed at our elder sisters for

taking so much trouble to dress up for just one procession

dance, and dismissed the thought as one of those typical

girl ish mysteries which can not be explained by any rational

soul on Earth! Later when we grew up, we started to real ize the

inherent pulsation of beauty manifested within each woman;

we started to feel a hi therto unknown expl ici t expression-

Èbeauty of ex istenceÍ and greatly enjoyed being together with

the gir ls in such occasions.



In short, we boys, learnt to appreciate and accept beauty as a

basic truth of l i fe and we are thankful to al l the girls for

conveying us the message with absolute ;lan on Basanta

Utsav morning. It was great to bask in beauty; hopeful ly it sti l l

is!

The turban-clad lad, decades and decades back, appears to be

in a real contemplation-or can be a l i ttle bewildered

underneath as wel l , at this ÈstickyÍ job with a fair ly energetic

lady! We enjoyed seemingly impossible dance pairs;

contrasting in styles and atti tude; to dance together creating

new chemistry within themselves. Lots of hearts f luttered;

eyes sparkled; faces l i t up-campus gossip found newer topics

to charge the community up for a few weeks. Finding a lady

partner for this procession dance was quite an intriguing job;

some could chose from several of his gir l fr iends and some

had to search hard for the destined one! I reckon the story

might just be simi lar for the ladies too. Many permanent

relations took shape in between the colourful mingl ing of

minds.



Basant or spring tiptoed in Santiniketan right after the winter.

Rabindranath Tagore readi ly fel t the playful rhythm of spring,

composed songs, which made nature in spring l i teral ly a

l iving enti ty within everyoneÍs mind. The nuances of such

rhythms al lowed many f leet footed participants dance merri ly

along. I often wondered about how Tagore created songs

specif ical ly meant for dance recitals. Technical ly i t should

require a superb sense of rhythm, which Rabindranath

inherently possessed, along with bri l l iant insight by the dance

composers of that era. At this point of time whi le Tagore is sti l l

very much a luminary; we hardly hear about the dance

composers of those days who ini tiated and gave shape to the

bri l l iant idea of ÈSantiniketan-i DanceÍ visual ized by Tagore.

In fact Santiniketan was an idea bui l t by many contr ibutors,

in many forms, al l through the early phases. I t was an

institutionalized effort with a strong visionary of remarkable

clar ity at the helm. Amazingly, among al l other activi ties in

Santiniketan, ÈdanceÍ has remained perhaps the least pol luted

by the course of time. I feel l ike paying a honest homage to the

great dance composers of that phase in Santiniketan; they

made the foundation so strong and natural that ti l l date the

f low has remained as vibrant as ever.

This is an interesting snap of spectators atop mango trees on

the Basanta Utsav day around the Jawhar Bedi. This was a

regular scene in our school days. In one such occasion, people

atop along with a branch of a mango tree, collapsed on the

spectators below creating a nasty accident. That was the last

time Basanta Utsav was held in Amrakunja. From the very

nex t year the ceremony was held at Gour Prangana to avoid

recurrence of such accidents. Celebration of Basanta Utsav

ultimately was torn off from Amrakunja; crowd management

became understandably a top priori ty; the lap of Ashrama, the

Amrakunja, became sultry in Basanta Utsav day, from that

year onwards!

Cgnnr d L` mf t ` f d English



What does ÈBeautyÍ mean? How to feel the pulse of

beauty? How to structure the basic formats on which the

concept of beauty bui lds up? These are some probing thoughts,

which arise in our minds consciously or subconsciously on

such occasions in Santiniketan.

General ly on the Basant Utsav day we remain dazed and



soaked in beauty in Santiniketan. The turn of events is usual ly

so varied and colourful that the day ends, even before the

feel ing has real ly sunk in. I have often thought about these

aspects of ÈBeautyÍ especial ly referr ing to ÈBasant UtsavÍ; and

each time the answer was i l lusive. The huge metamorphosis of

a large number of people into a di f ferent plane al together is a

rather powerful transformation, but without any tangible

explanation. This ofcourse suits the elusive and f leet footed

characteristic of ÈspringÍ very wel l . But one thing I feel for

sure that on the very Basanta Utsav day I, l ike many others,

am always able to establ ish a personal relation with a very

abstract idea ÈBeautyÍ. On that day ÈBeautyÍ is always a very

close companion to many of us and we freely indulge in an

expressive interaction with our own long time fr iend ÈBeautyÍ-

an experience hardly ever recreated on any other time.

Natural ly, Basanta Utsav revolves around this unique concept

of ÈBeautyÍ and we remain ever thankful to Rabindranath for

enabl ing us to visual ize ÈBeautyÍ with rare clari ty, basking in

the morning sun of Basanta Utsav.

Unfortunately in 2013 the whole Basanta Utsava celebration

has been r ipped off from the grounds of Ashrama to be thrown

at the Purva Pal l i Mela Ground; the effect of which remains

unknown ti l l this years celebration on 25March 2013. I t seems

that an era has def ini tely ended in Santiniketan. Ï BeautyÌ wi l l

hi therto take up newer dimensions; hopeful ly the new

experience wi l l remain cherish able.



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Shyamal Mazumder says:March 23, 2013 at 11:34 am

Exquisite; Top Class!

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chandrodoy says:March 26, 2013 at 9:26 am

Asadharan ! Smriti satotoi modhur !!

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Indraji t Roy says:June 5, 2013 at 2:42 pm

chobi gulo dusprapryo r Durlov… Durdanto Songroho…

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basanta utsav in black & white _ muktodhara

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