Basanta Utsav in Black & White _ Muktodhara
Transcript of 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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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
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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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