spring the queen of festivals

The announcement was made yesterday – once the gates of the Moghul Gardens are thrown open to the Public, it heralds the onset of spring, the queen of all seasons. With winter on its way out and summer yet to make its presence felt, spring is sandwiched in between – a come-and-go affair: with every passing year, its duration seems to be reducing. Exotic varieties of various types of roses, in bloom, reveal Nature in her true colors. The shades are breath taking – one wonders and marvels at he who creates such splendor.

Recently, I had been to a local flower exhibition and was wonder struck at the flowers, especially the roses, put up by participants - prizes were awarded to the King, Queen, Prince and Princess of roses. It was a world of its own, nature at her very best.

Valentine’s Day is one of the festivals held during spring – it is relatively new in the calendar of Indians. The youth of today, thanks to being egged on by professionals of the visual media, who are paid to sell dreams, gives it more importance than our very own spring festival namely, Holi. It is not that they do not celebrate Holi – far from it, holi revelers extract their pound of enjoyment, come what may. In comparison, the V-day is more sophisticated, more civilized than holi where color is splashed indiscriminately even on innocent bystanders and onlookers, who do not want to participate. V-day is all about expressing love in a more befitting manner – a bouquet of flowers, a greeting card special to the occasion, and probably an evening out with someone close to your heart. For the married, it would be the wife (age does not matter), to the school and college goers, it would be friends – friends of this year may change next year but, why bother: V-day comes every year!

It is understood that Bangalore is one of the leading exporters of roses to the West. It exports approximately 300 tonnes (about ten million rose stems) on the occasion of V-day. The price in the domestic market hovers around ten rupees per piece while in the export market it is around eighteen rupees. One of the leading lights in this field has, reportedly, dispatched one million roses, priced at thirty rupees each, to UK!