Winter sallies
Syed Badrul Haque
In season's rhythmic cycle, winter is presently on sabbatical. Lighter woolies, however, are yet to be retired to the closets. Winter's balmy and caressing sunshine has whizzed by. It seems that way in part because we don't have strong seasons to register the times. Our winter, however fleeting, is enchanting for all our senses -- mood, colour, atmosphere, let alone the bounties nature graces the season so generously with. It is in winter when foreign visitors and birds descend here in droves from the northern hemisphere, almost overfilling our hotels and wetlands to savour the pleasures of our winter.James J. Novak, who has authored a book on Bangladesh -- Reflections On Winter -- waxes lyrical in describing our winter as delightful like those of Florida and North Africa. It may be recalled that Wolfgang Ernst, a German diplomat in the late sixties who stayed here for more than one term, was ecstatic about our winter. Away in the US, winter gave me a lifetime surprise when I had the first-ever glimpse of snowflakes falling from the grey skies as I was commuting by train to New York from Silver Plain. Some school children with UN flags in their hands who too were going to New York to visit the UN headquarters were taken by surprise when they came to know about it. As I was gazing at the falling snow flakes through the window panes so engagingly, they were eyeing me in sheer amazement. Indeed, those were moments of the majestic beauties of the season, wherein mother earth reached its perfection. One wonders if the cool climate in any way relates to the system of governance that, however, is yet to be tested empirically. But President Ayub Khan of Pakistan sounded conclusive when he once said that democracy blossoms in cooler climes. Whatever. The writer is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.
|
|
