India, Aug. 24 -- As the festive season breaks upon us early this year, it almost feels like hurtling down a street without slowing to turn the customary bend. The latter half of August usually proffers bit of a breather between the Independence Day-Janamashtami revelry and Ganesh Utsav ushering in Fall's festive calendar. Rains go into retreat mode, the consumerist blitzkrieg of brand hopping brakes for a breather. But both are showing no signs this season of slipping into pause mode. So significant is this slight August-end pause, post Saawan and before the bustle of Ganesh Utsav-Navratri bursts upon us. Ah! but a festive season in a hurry heralds advanced flurry. The fast-forward festive calendar seems to be stealing that pregnant pause. How much hangs in that before-ness. Before that John Keats-esque season of "mellow fruitfulness" knocks at the door. How laden lies that pause with its emptiness, its nothingness. That fleeting emptiness of the fruit shelves, of the flower beds. Before jamuns, peaches and plums bid a final goodbye, before apples trundle in to throw about their weight upon the humble cousins of supermarket brands --- the pheriwalas. Heck! What with supermarkets showcasing year-round frozen apples, there's even a redefining of that Keats-esque ode to Autumn, "To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees". This between-ness is the time for sowing of Fall's flora. A time for Mother Earth's skin to get a peel-off facial, for those showstoppers of winter. Chrysanthemums & Co. This nothingness is a time of the sowing for fresh hopes and harvests, dreams and desires. How heartbeats hang over the fate of the foetuses that the maali pinches and pats into place in the furrows for Fall. Will it be a winter of bounteous babies bursting from bulbs and beds? Will the cold months herald a harvest of heartwarming hopes? How much hangs in this bewteen-ness. In this turning the bend between Saawan and Bhaadon. The between-ness of the pedas of Janmashtami and the modaks of Ganesh Utsav. The August-end air is meant to be amplified with anticipation. Bated breaths, both for Bappa's ear and for what winter season shall bear. Ah, but the racing calendar is robbing that between-ness. Pedas bumping into modaks. On the calendar, on the calorie count apps. This peda-modak collision doesn't augur too well for calories certainly. What with every season dishing out new innovation, new fusion. Brownies styled as modaks to Coconut-jaggery Cheesecakes to Modak Mousse! Recipe for a classic detox dilemma. To count or not to count calories. Every season heralds its own themes and trappings for Ganesh Utsav pandals. Heartening to see this season so high on the colours of India Shining. Operation Sindoor to the space sojourn of Shubhanshu Shukla are inspiring many a Ganesh Utsav pandal. A foretaste of what shall drive the Durga Pujo pandals. The sustainability sentiment soars stronger every season, what with green Ganapatis being now sculpted by every nook, cranny and granny. The only risk a fast-forward festive calendar runs is a mid-stream collision of the divinities driving Durga Pujo and Ganesh Utsav in the whirlpools of Visarjan. The curious case of "How Green Was My (Ganesha's) Mauli"....