Today, I write in response to the prompt Friday Writings #221: April Quotes
April doesn’t arrive quietly where I come from.
It arrives through all the senses—with color, with sound, with fragrance, with life. It doesn’t shy away from announcing itself to every living creature in my world.
April is bold—it makes itself known.
April is calm—it gathers and holds.
Is it Aries, or is it Taurus, you may think.
Like someone born in April, it is both.
Across the Indian subcontinent, April is when the harvest comes home. A time when effort turns into abundance, and people pause to celebrate what the land has given back.
The celebration goes by many names—Baisakhi in the north, Puthandu in the south, Poila Boishakh in Bengal, Bihu in Assam, Gudi Padwa in the west—but the spirit remains the same. A shared moment of renewal, culturally rooted in the same rhythm of life. A fresh new year starts in all regional Hindu calendars.
I need not one to nudge me or wake me up again.
I had to wake up only once.
When I was born into it. On the new year’s day of our calendar.
Yes, there are storms—fierce and sudden, Kal Baishakhi those are called. They arrive unannounced, rattle the skies, and leave their mark on homes, on nests, on trees. But they pass. They always pass. And what follows is clearer, brighter, renewed.
I read Peggy Toney Horton saying, “Although I was born in April, I’m quite certain I was not fully awake until October,” and I find myself grinning—my April is always alive, bursting with harvest feasts and familial laughter.
I was awake, I am awake—and I will be, for as long as I am allowed to be…
April is not just a season for me; it is the beginning of my story. A journey that reminds me that beginnings are loud, flavorful, and always shared by all. They weather storms and emerge sweeter, urging us to savour the harvest of our own lives.
There maybe no better time than now to pause, reflect and make good use of the life we have—every breath we take renews our lease on life, gives us another moment to live.
