Pahela Ashar, here comes the Monsoon!

[image: National Geographic downloads; photo credits: James P. Blair]

Monsoon season officially starts in Bangladesh this week. Pahela Ashar is the first day of the monsoon season in the Bengali calendar. Of course we New Yorkers have been experiencing our own variation of the monsoon this summer. Don’t you just love this photograph of the rain-drenched, green Bangladeshi countryside? I am thinking about all those great Bengali literature in which the rain has been romanticized, like this poem from JIBANANANDA DAS….

I Love These Raindrops   Ei Jal Bhalo Lage

I love these raindrops – how many times have these silvery drops of rainwater

Bathed me – caressed my hair – and touched me

With their tender refreshing hands playfully -

Have passionately kissed my lips as young girls in love would?

I love these raindrops falling on this land of blue leaves, soft grass, and sunshine.

- JIBANANANDA DAS

translated to English by Fakrul Alam

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