Poetry encrypted from soil, air, water and sunlight

Nilratan Halder | Published: November 03, 2023 21:50:28

This is mid-Kartik, the first month of the season Hemanta---the season of mist, the grey and sombre beauty of which needed a poet of Jibanananda Das's ilk to unravel in its myriad layers. Many like to wrongly equate the season with the late Fall in the Western world but Hemanta has no peer. It is unique in this part of the world. Sure enough, the climate change has made it duskier and the concentration of dews a little more intense. Even the mid-day sun may be a little warmer but the early morning and the late afternoon are equally hazy and indolent with the temperature dropping by a few degrees.
No, there is hardly any tree ---deciduous or otherwise---shedding leaves; rather the vast expanse of paddy fields starts wearing a golden look with the sheaves of Aman ripening. The country has come a long way off from the time when the two main paddy varieties of Aus and Aman were cultivated. Today both have lost their premier positions to high-yielding varieties of Boro and IRRI and the chronicle of agriculture is being rewritten. Or, else, the land would not be able to feed the growing population. Yet the greatest loser is not Aman or even Aus, it is the early varieties of Laxmi Deegha and Kafa Deegha that have almost disappeared from the land. These two varieties were harvested in Kartik, then called 'mora mas' (dead month) for valid reasons. It was the time when most people ran out of their stock of rice and hunger stalked silently. The two types of Deegha paddy came as a boon for people encountering food crisis.
However, all this has changed and changed for the better. Planted Aman paddy was mostly a foreign concept then in agriculture. Today, this has become a more acceptable practice among farmers in vast areas of the country. Although the finest Aman varieties could not be retained to see if those would have been suitable for this mode of cultivation, the newly developed kinds are known for more than moderate yield. What is particularly significant is that farmers in many rice producing belts do not have to wait up to Agrahayan for harvesting their crop.
From Sirajdikhan of Munshiganj, to Jashore to the vast Barendra area, it is harvesting time. Although Rajshahi, Meherpur, Godagari and other rice producing areas of the division have just tentatively begun harvesting Aman paddy, in Munshiganj it is going in full swing. Jashore is not left much behind. The time of food crisis around this time of the year has long taken its leave from this land. On that count, farmers and the entire nation can be thankful to the agricultural scientists of the country.
This year, the expectation is that there will be a bumper Aman yield largely because of the favourable weather that the crop had for the plants to grow healthy. Although, initially Aman cultivation in Rajshahi suffered due to heat waves and a lack of rains, the weather became ideal for late cultivation of the crop. At a time when hunger and famine stare in the face of millions in the world, this is good news for the people in Bangladesh.
What happens in such a happy time of harvest is happening. This time 'Nabanna', the festival of rice harvest, has been fast forwarded in many areas. Happy faces of farmers flash in the field of Aman paddy as they gather the sheaves in bundles. Their celebration has begun a fortnight earlier although the scheduled occasion on the calendar will duly be observed. City people are likely to miss the joy and mirth associated with Nabanna. The young generations in particular have no experience of this festival of plenty and fulfilment. Farmers can enjoy it to the fullest because they are reaping the fruits of their toil.
So, the gloom of Hemanta opens up a new vista in terms of the celebratory mood the sons of the soil have every right to nurture and enjoy. Farmers may not discover the dew drops hanging from the blades of grass in a new light like Jibanananda but they too are a kind of poet in their own right. After all, they tend the paddy plants with love and affection until the rice field becomes a rich mine of precious resource--- more valuable than gold. Blessed are those who create the grains that sustain the nation. Theirs is a different kind of poetry that is encrypted from the soil, the air, the water and above all the light from the sun. The indebted nation must be grateful to these wonderful poets.