Don't Be Surprised If Autumn and Fall Are Two Different Seasons- My Reply to a Writing Challenge From Carb Diva

One of our great hubber friends, Carb Diva has invited us, writers, to participate in a writing challenge through her hub "A Writing Challenge" at this link http://carbdiva.hubpages.com/hub/-A-Writing-Challenge.

She provided an image of a country road during an autumn season (filled with fallen leaves of trees on both sides of the road) as a prompt for writing anything you like using that picture- write a story, a poem, or plain verse that builds up into an article enough to be featured on HubPages.

Autumn season is known as the transcendental period from Summer to Winter. It is a pleasant and beautiful season - full of natural flora and fauna - mostly favorable for tourists and admirers of nature's beauty. Winter is chilly and cold and can only be enjoyed when fully equipped. So most tourists favor Autumn.

Fall (or do you call it Autumn?) is viewed as a very unfavorable period, when nature turns you into a very depressive mood during this season, bearing a deserted look full of dried-up leaves, harvested fields, and dried-up weather and drowsiness. Everything around you seems gloomy and full of mists. Autumn is a season of unpredictable weather with sudden rains, clouds, and winds confining people to their homes. It bears an unpleasant message that everything is susceptible to aging, decay, and death. That is the bad part of it as is perceived by most people.

Here are some quotes taken from works by great poets and writers to give a clear natural picture of the Autumn season.

From "Ode to Autumn" by John Keats:

"While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies......"

From "The Name of it is Autumn" by Emily Dickinson:

"The name—of it—is 'Autumn'—
The hue—of it—is Blood—
An Artery—upon the Hill—
A Vein—along the Road—

Great Globules—in the Alleys—
And Oh, the Shower of Stain—
When Winds—upset the Basin—
And spill the Scarlet Rain—.........."

The season of Autumn is mostly associated with 'Fall'. Fall refers to the shedding of the leaves by trees. Most deciduous trees lose their leaves during this season covering the earth and environment with dried up and decayed leaves.

The rains and winds are the causes for this shedding of leaves. Another fact is that the trees re-absorb all the nutrients including chlorophyll from their leaves to stand themselves against the odd weather conditions during this season. Naturally, when the leaves lose all these essentials, they dry up and fall from their branches. Hence, the trees bear a bare, deserted look making the scenery unpleasant during the fall season. But nature lovers love the season by admiring the beauty of leaves and flowers changing their hues. Everything appears beautiful with the scenery turning into Gold, Yellow, and Red hues all around you.

Autumn is known as 'Sharad Ritu' by us here in India. A season is referred to as 'ritu' by our people. We have six ritu in a year- each lasting for two months. Our calendars start with the spring season in the second half of March. Autumn or Sharad ritu is the fourth season after spring, summer, and rainy seasons.

• Sharad ritu is a pleasant season for us after experiencing the hardships of summer and rainy seasons.
• Goddess Saraswati also known as "Sharada" ( Goddess of Learning & Knowledge) is associated with the Sharad season or Autumn.
• The Navaratri festival is celebrated in this Sharad ritu glorifying the nine forms of Goddess. It is known as the festival of nine nights or the 'Dussehra' festival which falls during the first or the second week of October.
• The famous performances of 'Ram Leela' enacting scenes from Ramayan take place during this season only.
• This is a season of great enjoyment and celebrations with all ten days filled with festival flavour and hectic activity in temples and cultural auditoriums.
• We used to enjoy picnics with our families and friends at least once during this season near valleys and waterfalls. Some of them used to enjoy taking a bath at the waterfalls. But, I mostly preferred helping in cooking and enjoying under the trees with family and friends. We reach the spots trekking and descending through valleys with loads of food in bags- raw and cooked, cooking tools, water, etc. We used to gather dry twigs, leaves, and broken branches for the fire on which the food gets cooked. So, it is an enjoyable season for all of us.

The fall season which refers to the shedding of leaves and withering of nature occurs during February as per my experience. It is the last season of the year after winter known as shishir ritu.

• As already mentioned by me, there are six seasons in a year. Starting with Spring, the other seasons are Summer, Rainy, Autumn, Winter, and Fall.
• Our Indian names for these six seasons are Vasantha, Greeshma, Varsha, Sharad, Hemant, and Shishir.
• This Shishir ritu or fall is the period when most of our trees shed their leaves and the whole atmosphere gets filled with the aroma of dry leaves and flowers flown from lane to lane by the winds. The new leaves and flowers start blooming in March.
• Fall denotes the end of winter and the arrival of spring season.
• We enjoy trolling through the paths filled with dry leaves during our morning walks. You can see the flowers and leaves detaching from their branches and flying towards you during morning walks. It is a peculiar type of enjoyment.
• Deciduous trees bear a blank look for a few days in this season.
• The cool winds are soothing to the face and the skin.

John Keats -

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,...."

George Eliot -

"Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns......"

Thomas Hood -

"I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn; --
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn......."

I find a ton of amazing content for reading on the internet showcasing the Culture, Literature, Arts, and Nature that narrate each season's facts at one of our Indian Government websites on 'Incredible India'. The website is titled "Indian Council for Cultural Relations.net". It is 100 pages long with some artistic images. I am very pleased to share this information with all interested in reading, collecting knowledge, and experiencing it with full joy. The link to this treasure of knowledge is provided in the Links Capsule below.