Lead a healthy life 123

My spring song for a healthy life

We Bengalis celebrate 13 festivals in 12 months - everyone says it! It's true! We are a joy-loving nation - maybe! One such festival in our Bengali calendar is "Basant Utsav" (spring festival), - that is, the season of flowers blooming according to the laws of nature after overcoming the grayness of winter - a festival to welcome spring.

It is celebrated on the 1st of the month of Phalgun in the Bengali calendar. What a mystery of God!! - If we observe a little, we can understand and see!! - It doesn't rain much at this time, in a way it can be said that even in extreme dryness, young leaves can be seen on the trees, most of the flowers bloom in this season. Rare beautiful flowers 'Shimul, Palash' (flame tree, cotton tree) bloom in this season, which cannot be made to bloom at any other time even if we try.

For the past few days, I have been hearing the festive spirit of the arrival of Falgun in everyone's joyfull conversations, including the media. That is, we get excited, even if only for a moment, by the colors and flavors of nature!! It feels good, the mind is refreshed, the chest is filled with hope, - we think that, we will get a beautiful-healthy-clean-peaceful world and environment with everyone!

I remember when I was a child, we used to celebrate the ‘spring festival’ in school with many arrangements. I remember how pure I was mentally as a child. There may have been many complications around, but nothing touched our childish minds. We were as pure as this nature, our children are also - will remain so, if we are aware and adopt the right approach.

In our country of seasonal diversity, nature will follow its rules. Falgun will come and Falgun will go, summer - monsoon, winter will all come and go according to the rules of nature. People will also celebrate it. I like this diversity of nature - in our life that is swayed by happiness and sorrow.

We see every year or we can say - we have been seeing it since birth, sometimes we notice it - sometimes we don't, --- Shimul Palash has started to bloom, even the leafless trees are getting new leaves, slowly turning green, returning to their eternal form!! That's when I think of Falgun, so it's very near.

Although we celebrate, we usually don't keep track of the months of the Bengali calendar. Moreover, these days there is no ‘season or offseason' for rain - winter - fog to fall on the earth - so we get more confused - when is monsoon and when is spring! But nature does not forget to let us know. Despite hundreds of tortures by us, nature continues to fulfill its duty, - to decorate the earth with flowers and fruits, - to benefit us with it. Where we are obstructing the natural flow of nature by misusing it at every step!!

Whether people are fascinated by the form of nature or not, nature will decorate itself in its own form after a certain time. In the words of Rabindranath Tagore- (kushum komol rup) , ‘the soft and gentle form of the flower’. We humans are fascinated by this ‘soft and gentle’ form of nature, we also decorate ourselves and celebrate by becoming ‘soft and gentle’, we inspire ourselves - it is good. But do we retain “this inspiration” within ourselves for the rest of our days?!

If we did retain it, would our own - our society - our environment - and the entire world have this fragile form?! Conflict of interests - fights - violence - environmental disaster - unrest - processions of death in various ways - lamentations - fires of instability-- --would there be?!

I see - ‘We do not retain it, we celebrate it only for momentary pleasure - for publicity - for display!!

The poet says, 'Whether flowers bloom or not, spring will come', similarly I say, 'Whether we celebrate or not, whether we embrace the "softness of the spring" or not, - spring will come. Spring will come with its endless wealth of traditional beauty, where there is no artificiality or pretense. There may be pretense in our celebration and hypocrisy in our display, but nature adorns itself with its inherent purity and innocence.

Spring will come to remind us at its appointed time, silent nature says in a silent language with its behavior - "Look - how beautiful the world and life are, - pure - innocent. Look - all the wear and tear - smallness - selfishness, jealousy, greed and hatred are shaken off - pushed away, - how beautifully we can build ourselves", our world can be decorated with our inner beauty. 

If we can benefit religion, land, all the senses of humanity, trust in each other, our own faith, why should we make people like guinea pigs too!! 

If we keep our own conscience in chains, then where will the "flowery tenderness" of 'Phalgun's Call' come to us from, - in which way?! 

Can't we take a little "purity, selflessness, gentleness" from nature and give this world - the creatures of the world a healthy life - a healthy world - a healthy environment! The creator has given us that ability - with a sense of conscience, has also made arrangements for taking lessons through nature and many other things, just waiting for our understanding.

Can we get a healthy world by looking at the form of nature with our bare eyes and seeing the beauty of Shimul-Palash or singing spring songs? Like Rabindranath's song about nature, we must be "everything is beautiful, everything is gentle" from our hearts! If people use people - land as an excuse to use land like guinea pigs, our desired 'spring-rich world' - will remain in imagination and song, - never in reality!!

If we want to lead a healthy life, we need to understand.