Abihotry Bhardwaz
Once a year the world blushes. In Japan, sakura explode into clouds of pale pink and white, then fall away within days — confetti of petals that insists, gently and insistently, on the present moment. The same brief, luminous show happens in Shillong: the city and its parks fill with cherry blossoms that feel like a borrowed Japan, yet are utterly Meghalaya — an autumnal crown on a Khasi hill. The Shillong Cherry Blossom Festival has turned that seasonal burst into a celebration of music, art and local life, tying the city’s brief florals to an annual ritual of attention.
Beauty that lasts only for an instant teaches a hard kindness: notice now, for this will not be here tomorrow. Sakura do not wait for us to be ready; their briefness is the lesson. That transience is not sorrow alone — it is the source of intensity. We gather under the trees, we take photographs, we promise to remember — and the remembering becomes a practice of gratitude. In Japan this has long been a cultural lens (hanami) through which people practise presence; Shillong’s blossoming scene channels that same urgency to celebrate what is fleeting.
If sakura teaches presence through impermanence, bamboo teaches presence through perseverance. In Assam—one of India’s richest bamboo regions—bamboo is worn, built, cooked with and crafted into livelihoods: from household tools and the jaapi to furniture and artisan export items. It is woven into ceremonies and economy alike; entire communities depend on its harvest and craft. Bamboo’s virtues are plain: fast growth, renewability, lightness and toughness. Those biological facts have a cultural echo — bamboo becomes the local metaphor for adaptability and usefulness.
Across Asia, and in Japan especially, bamboo is a living parable. It bends under snow and storms without breaking; it springs back. Japanese gardens, festivals and folklore treat bamboo as a guardian and guide — a symbol of resilience, protection and humility. This complementary image — sakura’s beautiful brevity and bamboo’s persistent flexibility — forms a single wisdom: life is made of things that dazzle only briefly and things that carry us through the long haul. When we place Shillong’s blossoms and Assam’s bamboo beside Japan’s sakura and groves, the similarity is not imitation but conversation. Shillong borrows the visual language of sakura, yet the festival is an expression of local life — music stages, street food, Khasi landscapes. Assam’s bamboos are as utilitarian as they are poetic; in practice they teach communities how to survive and thrive. Together they form a two-part practice for living well: celebrate the fragile so you learn presence; cultivate the flexible so you endure.
Each year in Japan, cherry blossoms erupt in breathtaking colour, linger briefly, then vanish as softly as they arrived. They don’t wait for us to be ready. They teach presence by leaving quickly.
Shillong’s cherry blossoms do the same. For a few weeks, the hills turn pink, the air feels lighter, and the city seems to hold its breath. And just when you begin to fall in love with the sight, the petals drift away — a reminder that beauty is temporary, and that’s what makes it precious.
“Nothing lasts. So be here now.”
But where blossoms teach impermanence, bamboo teaches endurance.
In Japan, bamboo groves whisper of resilience — stalks bow with snow and storms, then rise again.
In Assam, bamboo is not poetry alone; it is life. It is woven into homes, tools, bridges, baskets, and livelihoods. It bends with the Brahmaputra’s winds, it survives monsoon floods, and it recovers swiftly after being cut.
It is strength without stubbornness, flexibility without fear, and power that chooses softness first.
This idea matters because it gives a way to move through loss and triumph. When beauty passes — a blossom, a season, a moment of joy — we are trained to make space for grief and thanks. When strength is tested — a storm, a setback, an uncertain future — we are trained to bend and re-centre rather than snap. The sakura teaches us to stop and receive; the bamboo teaches us to stand again. Both lessons are tender; both are necessary.
If you’re a writer, a traveller, or simply a person who wants a steadier heart, let this be the practice you borrow from two forests and two cultures: go to the blossom, and sit under it fully. Then go home and tend the bamboo that holds your life upright. True beauty will pass. Enduring strength will yield a life that lasts long enough to love more moments as they come.
(The author can be reached at abihotrybhardwaz72@gmail.com.)