Of Autumn & Bengal

While in the west autumn is marked with fallen leaves and a touch of melancholy. It is quite different in Bengal, where the season welcomes a bright blue sky, green fields, and golden harvest. Autumn is synonymous to a romantic notion of our lives with the fragrant shiuli blossoms enthralling hearts and people pleased with the yearly agricultural yield.

No wonder many Bengali poets took the season as their inspiration to write prose and poetry. The arrival of the season is marked with the honour of welcoming the goddess Durga to mother earth, where she blesses the entire humankind to prosperity and glory.  The autumnal festivities continue on a similar positive note with the celebration of the Nabanna Utshab (celebrations of the annual harvest) until the commencement of winter.

Hence the festive spirit of the month helps instigate a temporary holiday mood amongst the people of Bengal— an expression that is often borrowed by the writers and recorded in their works.

Tagore's poetic imagination is largely inspired by the warmth and ripeness of the season. This is probably why in the Prakriti section of Gitabitan, he talks about shining landscapes, the clear azure sky, starlit nights, sound of hedge crickets, and the full moon.

Sometimes the poet associates the seasonal prosperity to the image of Bengal as a whole. In many of his poems, the praise of the season merges with his admiration for the country.

Graced by the beauty of green and gold

With floral trimmings at her feet

There stands our Mother adorned

—           Tagore (Kalpana)

Jibanananda Das looked at autumn in a very special way, often in the form of a woman. Personification is perhaps inspired by the Greek way of referring to nature in the female form. While Tagore looks at the season in all its glory, Das looks closely at the associated melancholy. In most of his poems, the radiance of the autumn fields in the afternoons is followed by the quietness of the misty evenings.

The dusk descends – a calm silence prevails everywhere;

Holding a straw in its beaks, a magpie glides quietly;

A cart moves slowly along the dusty walk;

The courtyard is filled with heavy heaps of golden straw,

—           Jibanananda Das (Dusk Descends)

While two of the greatest poets in Bengal are smitten with autumn, they encourage thousands following their footsteps to be mesmerised with the season like them. 

It may sound strange but the king of the seasons — 'springtime' is very inconspicuous in Bengal whereas we give more importance to early winter (autumn) – a time for barren trees and harvested stubble.

It only seems fit to end on a positive note with one of Das' earliest poems where he sings of praise for the mystic season.

I have felt the breath of Autumn wind

With the fragrance of Spring still in my heart

I have touched shiveringly the skirt

Of Autumn, her treasure nervously grinned.

-              Jibanananda Das ( I Have Felt the Breath)

Photo: LS Archive/Sazzad Ibne Sayed