By Vincent Van Ross

When the days are not so warm and the nights are not so cold, I feel that perhaps spring is in the air!

If you ask me, there are only two seasons—the summer and the winter. Spring and monsoon are just two transitory phases which facilitate change of season.

Spring is a time when nature presses its refresh button. You find new leaves on trees and plant spreading a carpet of green which is so soothing to the eye; flowers bloom in variegated and vibrant colours which is pleasing to the eye; birds build nests and prepare for a new brood; animals begin their courtship to carry forward their lineage and so on and so forth.

Like monsoon, spring too has been romanticized by poets, writers and artists alike. While monsoon has been used to great advantage while shooting romantic scenes for Indian movies, spring flowers, mating birds or animals and other such symbolism are used to portray romance.

The most visible signs of spring are the colourful flowers that bloom all over the city painting the city in the rainbow colours of nature. How can we forget the yellow of the amaltas; or, the purple of the jacaranda; or, the reds of the coral tree and the silk cotton tree; or, the multiple hues of roses that bloom during spring? Some of these trees shed their leaves completely when they are in full bloom and the whole tree paints itself in the colour of its blooms without a single patch of green. How elated one feels to be treated to such a sight!

Monsoon has a lot of similarities with spring. Fresh leaves appear on trees and plants and there is a lot of greenery in the city during monsoon as well. Flowering trees and shrubs experience a second flush and are once again in bloom. Some of the birds whose first attempts in spring towards their reproductive process did not yield any result, give it another try in monsoon. In any case, the waterfowls breed only during monsoon.

There are many other similarities between spring and monsoon. Interestingly, the word monsoon was first used in English in the Indian context!

Above all, monsoon is the hyphen between summer and winter which ushers in winter just as spring is the hyphen between winter and summer which announces the advent of summer. Even the temperatures at many places are similar during spring and monsoon. That is party responsible for the process of rejuvenation that begins in spring and monsoon. Now, tell me, don’t you agree that monsoon is indeed the second spring?