?briksharopon? the tree plantation ceremony

The Great Indian poetRabindranath Tagore died on 7th Aug 1941(According to the Bengali calendar 22 Shravan that is 8th Aug). When he was alive the ritual of tree plantation started in Santiniketan in a particular day. After his death, the day he died have been fixed for the tree plantation ceremony, we call it ?briksharopon?. The idea behind it is planting a new life, through ritual, by singing song of rain on the day the poet died.

The students of Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan arrange the programme. The students from the visual art department decorate the place where the tree will be planted; they decorate the element which will be used in the ritual. They make the ornament from flowers, green lives from the morning. In the evening a beautiful procession comes to the place of plantation by dancing and singing songs with the tree which will be planted.
In this image we can see the students decorating the ?palki?, which will carry the tree to the planting site.

Can you remember Joseph Beuya work of planting 7000 tree for ?Documenta?, between 1982 and 1987.

VRIKSHAROPANA (7/8 August)

Vriksharopana or Tree Planting Ceremony as a seasonal festival was formally introduced in 1928 and along with Halakarshana (Ploughing) was part of the Rain Festival. These two seasonal festivals at Santiniketan and Sriniketan respectively are picturesque with their simple and artistic ceremonials accompanied by music, dancing and Vedic chanting, invoking nature's fertility and symbolizing its ever-recurring youth. Rabindranath had long bewailed the ruthless deforestation of the countryside and wished to introduce a practice which would catch the popular imagination and make people plant trees for the love of them.