autumn | One and a Half Minutes

I love Autumn. Well, it is my most favourite season, especially when I’m in a country at the Northern Hemisphere. Autumn has never been more distinctly observed in my part of the world – India. In West Bengal, where I grew up, autumn mostly meant romanticising about clear blue skies with soft white clouds playing around, announcing the advent of Durga pujo. The colours of autumn have been evident to me only after visiting countries into the Northern Hemisphere – USA, Northern Ireland and now Belgium.

Today was a rare sunny day after weeks of rain and gloom. The winds are already rocking the leaves down and just before these coloured ones fade away onto the ground, we decided to make a little trip to the famous Park Tervuren in Brussels. It was breathtaking as we reached late and captured a bit of autumn to cherish until the next one. You will find red/orange/yellow/light green/ochre – basically a warm colour palette planted into nature that dissipate and make a comeback every year, without fail.

Here’s a photoblog of a few of them, hope you enjoy the photos. So long!

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Shiuli/Parijaat/Nyctanthes

How does nostalgia treat you? Is it like a spouse, lingering around, making space into your psyche, or like a distant lover, appearing only in turns? Mine is mostly like the latter, fleeting sporadically with a whiff of fragrance like the Shiuli flowers.

Mahalaya for Bengalis is a huge chunk of nostalgia that hovers before the onset of autumn. Marking the termination of Pitripaksha (fortnight of the forefathers), this day has its own significance within different communities. For us, it marks the beginning of Debipaksha (fortnight of the goddess) and eventually Durga Pujo, for others, the start of Navratri. Apart from these religious and spiritual habits, Mahalaya is solely important to a lot of Bengalis for a radio programme called Mahishasurmardini. This incredible show was curated and performed first in 1932 and is enthralling millions since then. It was recorded for the first time in 1946 so that pre-independence riots do not hamper the performance at dawn (source from Twitter). The Aagomoni songs for welcome of Durga into her parents’ abode take a backstage to the brilliant chanting of stotras by the legend called Birendra Krishna Bhadra. The resonance in his voice is something one can’t miss during Mahalaya each year. It gives me goosebumps for sure.

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