In praise of Shraban

Barsha (rainy season) was a favourite season with Rabindranath Tagore. So it is with many Bangalees. Yet it can be said without fear that had Tagore not opened the eyes of the average Bangalees to the many shades and shines of Nature, the seasons would never have appeared with the especially enchanting appeal they hold for the ordinary mortals in what was the undivided Bengal. The poet's days in Shilaidah unfolded before his probing eyes the sights and sounds of East Bengal in their multifarious colours and tunes. Readers of the Chhinapatra are transposed to a world so captivating that is real at its most familiar and yet something ethereal and surreal hangs over it like a lazy mist over a morning full of sunshine.
Then what makes the poet of life and sunshine, who paid his daily homage to the sun through regular prayer until he fell ill for the last time, to turn so lovingly to rain? He has composed more than a hundred songs (about 150) on rains but surprisingly only 12 or so on Ashad. The rest concerns Shraban. Well, the poet has a famous poem on Ashad but his clear favouritism with Shraban cannot be kept secret when the number of his songs on this season is taken into account. Was it a coincidence that the poet would not die in any other month but precisely in Shraban for which he had a special liking? Or, it is something more than it?
Ashad this year has seen scanty rains but Shraban has not been so miserly in bestowing its favour. Although the rains have not been incessant for days together like they were in yesteryears, they have played pranks with people quite often. When there is no sign of dark clouds on the horizon and people come out without umbrellas, rains come rushing from nowhere -albeit briefly, to drench them. Ashad reminded everyone that climate is changing not always for the better. Temperature was on the high side with humidity, making a hell of a life for most people.
However Shraban has been kind enough to set clouds on their wings whenever the sun started looking angry and giving people a piece of its mind. Clouds have appeared in aid of the suffering mortals to capture the heat and send down some rains to cool the earth below. Sure enough, during Rabinranath's time Shraban was even more generous and it rained and rained for days together, causing suffering to poor people of society. Tagore who gave away the major portion of the money he received by way of his Nobel Prize for the establishment of a cooperative bank for farmers in Patisar could not be indifferent to their suffering.
The poet, who introduced improved version of ploughs so that farmers had to do less toil while ploughing their land, may even have a split personality here. The poet and nature lover in him helped him establish reunion with what he called 'Jiban debata' (God of life). A person of his calibre could not detach him from reality all right but his inner voice always guided him to be one with the ultimate truth. Shraban brought the poet peace and serenity when his soul was deeply wounded by the many deaths-quite a few of them premature -he had to mourn in his long life.
In a different context of climate change, Shraban may well be completely different from what Tagore so adored. But till now it has made its presence known by the heavenly drops without which life on the Earth will be unimaginable.