[Footnote 1: Of the Bengal era.]
[Footnote 2: In the _Meghaduta_ (Cloud Messenger) of Kalidas a famous
description of the burst of the Monsoon begins with the words: _On the
first day of Asarh_.]
It sometimes strikes me how immensely fortunate I am that each day should
take its place in my life, either reddened with the rising and setting
sun, or refreshingly cool with deep, dark clouds, or blooming like a white
flower in the moonlight. What untold wealth!
A thousand years ago Kalidas welcomed that first day of _Asarh_; and
once in every year of my life that same day of _Asarh_ dawns in all
its glory--that self-same day of the poet of old Ujjain, which has brought
to countless men and women their joys of union, their pangs of separation.
Every year one such great, time-hallowed day drops out of my life; and the
time will come when this day of Kalidas, this day of the _Meghaduta_,
this eternal first day of the Rains in Hindustan, shall come no more for
me. When I realise this I feel I want to take a good look at nature, to
offer a conscious welcome to each day's sunrise, to say farewell to each
day's setting sun, as to an intimate friend.
What a grand festival, what a vast theatre of festivity! And we cannot
even fully respond to it, so far away do we live from the world! The light
of the stars travels millions of miles to reach the earth, but it cannot
reach our hearts--so many millions of miles further off are we!
The world into which I have tumbled is peopled with strange beings.
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