Basanta · Grishma

Spring and Summer

Appears in
Bengali Cooking: Seasons & Festivals

By Chitrita Banerji

Published 1997

  • About
Flagrantly scarlet on bare branches or covertly crimson amidst dark green foliage, the early flowers of spring arrive to signal an end to the mellow contentment of winter and to herald a brief, unsettling season. Hardly perceived before it is over, spring in Bengal combines beauty and terror like the longer-lasting monsoon. The variety of colours ranged on the trees and the fragrance of mango trees in blossom carried by the balmiest of evening breezes create a lightness of being before the relentless weight of summer sets in. A little later in the season the heady scent of gardenia in the evenings heightens sensory awareness to a new pitch, but the changeable weather of spring is inevitably accompanied by outbreaks of chickenpox and measles. Not so long ago a greater terror stalked the land at this time: smallpox, whose Bengali name, Basanta, is synonymous with the season itself.