Barsh

During the last few days of summer, each longer than the previous one, the endurance of man, land, animals and vegetation is stretched to breaking point. As the people of Bengal live through this scorching, humid hell, waiting for Barsha, the monsoon, some find comfort in quoting the opening phrase of the Meghadootam, a Sanskrit love poem by the Indian poet Kalidasa, ‘Asharasya prathama dibase’—‘On the first day of Asharh’—for this is the month which will bring the relief of rain, gentle and violent, to an exhausted earth.