Palash flowers in hair, Visva-Bharati students dance during Basanta Utsav in 2012. File picture

Ranga hashi rashi rashi ashokey palashey,

Ranga nesha meghe mesha pravato akashey...

Santiniketan, March 26: Tomorrow morning at the baitalik procession in Visva-Bharati, hundreds of students will sing Ore Grihobashi and sway to the music, but they won’t be adorned in the flame-coloured palash, if a university circular is obeyed.

For the first time on the campus founded by Rabindranath Tagore, the authorities have told students through a circular that they must not pluck, buy or wear palash flowers, for they look better on trees.

The blooming palash (butea monosperma) is the sign of approaching spring or basanta, and in Visva-Bharati Holi means Basanta Utsav.

The line Ranga hashi rashi rashi ashokey palashey — it describes the happy colours of spring — is from one of Tagore’s most famous songs Ore Grihobashi. It is a favourite at the baitalik, the morning procession on the campus when students celebrate the utsav. The song is about Dol (Holi).

This Dol will be different, it seems, and not all students are happy.

“This year, we have issued a circular restricting the use of palash during Basanta Utsav. When spring sets in, the flame-coloured flowers blossom in abundance here. The Visva-Bharati campus looks beautiful. The flowers look better on the trees,” said registrar D. Gunasekaran, who issued the circular last week.

According to an official, if students or visitors are seen wearing palash in the hair or as garlands, they would be told to leave the Basanta Utsav venue.

Sougata Samanta, the joint secretary of the committee that organises the Basanta Utsav every year, said: “Palash will not be allowed during Basanta Utsav this year. Our volunteers will request visitors over the public address system not to carry with them the flowers while on the venue as it would encourage others to do so.”

The varsity’s decision has broken a decades-old custom. Women students in yellow-and-red saris, palash tucked in their hair and aabir on their faces is a recurring visual of Visva-Bharati that attracts hundreds of tourists to the campus.

Basanta Utsav was started in the 1920s by Tagore to celebrate spring.

The practice of wearing flowers as ornaments was encouraged in Santiniketan as Tagore had envisioned it as an ashram.

Students were encouraged to take from and give back to nature in a harmonious way, a point highlighted by a former student and teacher of Visva-Bharati today when he spoke in support of the varsity’s restriction.

Octogenarian Supriyo Tagore, a former student and former principal of Patha Bhavana, said: “In Tagore’s time, students collected the palash that fell from the trees. But now, before every Basanta Utsav, the flowers are plucked. Branches are cut away. It is a good move by the varsity to restrict the use of palash.”

Some current students are unhappy. A postgraduate said the flower was “synonymous” with the festival.

“Palash is synonymous with Basanta Utsav in Santiniketan. I have worn garlands and wristlets made of the flower. The flame-coloured flower adds the final touch to our attire during the utsav. But this year, the use of palash has been restricted. We are disappointed,” the first-year postgraduate student of Sangeet Bhavana said.