Just around the festival of Diwali, in India, you start feeling a change in the air. If you’re in the plains of north India, you’d see the fog (it’s more smog than fog, these days) enveloping most parts of your city. If you’re somewhere in the Himalayas, as I am, the change is more noticeable to your skin than the eyes. Your teeth start chattering, body teetering, and smoke-like vapours flow out of your mouth. “Winter is coming,” the phrase becomes popular among the wider public, and not just the lovers of Game of Thrones.
You and I are not the first one to notice this change. Back in time, Kalidasa noticed it too, and he paid an ode to the seasons in his masterpiece Ritusamhara. So what did he say about this early winter season? Wait… is it early winter or frost? Well, it depends on which translation you are reading. Let’s go with Frost as it sounds aesthetically more pleasing.
Kalidasa’s description of the frost season
In his usual style, Kalidasa takes you close to nature and paints a picture of what is going around in this season.
Barley shoots sprouting suddenly,
weaving a green embroidery, paddy
ripening, Lodhra blossoms all around,
lotuses withered away, dew falling heavily,
these ring in the fine season of frost.
Slowly, from there, he takes you to the world of men and women, and what nature does to them.
The fields covered with ripened paddy
as far as eyes can see, their boundaries
full of herd of does, midlands filled with
sweet cries of graceful demoiselle cranes.
Ah! What passion they arouse in the heart!
You know where this is going. It’s as if he has created a background for the picture and now he is ready to introduce the main characters. He goes on to do what he does best: describing the feminine beauty in the most eloquent way.
A young woman holding a mirror in her hand
puts makeup on her face in the morning sun,
and pouting her lips—whose nectar was sucked
by her lover at night, surveys the teeth marks.
There’s more…
Yet another woman, her body weary
after sleepless, passionate night of lovemaking,
her eyes white like lotus, hair tousled on shoulders,
falls asleep basking under the balmy sun.
And that’s not it. Why would you think there are only two women. It’s Kalidasa’s ode to the feminine beauty, so there are going to be many more. What are they up to? Let’s find out.
Other young women remove faded flowers,
which have lost their fragrance, from the chaplets
worn over their dark hair resembling dense rain clouds
and busy themselves restyling their hair,
the weight of their bosoms make their slender
bodies dainty like pearl pendants, stoop slightly.
It goes on.
Other charming women weary from prolonged
lovemaking let out soft, joyous sighs,
rubbing oils and pastes on their nipples
and in the deep creases of their thighs.
Beautiful, isn’t it?
As I’ve said many time before, Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara is not just a book about seasons. It is equally about how beauty is observed, how lovers meet and embrace each other, how ecstasy is experienced in different seasons. The winter might just have arrived, but we will continue to explore its intimate connections with Kalidasa’s poetry in the next post as well.
Kalampedia 