Subho Nobo Borsho

Subho Nobo Borsho (Happy Bengali New Year) dear readers.

I hope quarantine life is treating you kindly.

Bengali new year is not an event that I remember as being of any significance for me besides the ritual of calling everyone in the extended family and saying the above words as a form of greeting to one other. The phone averse person that I am, this has quickly being replaced these days with a quick and convenient Whatsapp message. Oh and of course being a Bengali, there was food and sandesh (bengali sweets)

I spent most of today working, the did a much needed cleanup of the apartment, lit a candle, ordered in some sushi and went down an internet rabbit hole of researching about something very random - New Year Poetry!

I was very curious but also dreading the barrage of corny greeting cards messages that Google will throw my way. However I pleasantly surprised at a few gems I found.

On today's Bengali new year, I wanted to share one of these poems that really tugged my heart strings.

This one by Naomi Shihab Nye is a wistful poem about the ephemeral nature of life.

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did - the underlined lines are my favorites.

BURNING THE OLD YEAR

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.

Notes friends tied to the doorknob,

transparent scarlet paper,

sizzle like moth wings,

marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,

lists of vegetables, partial poems.

Orange swirling flame of days,

so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,

an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.

I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,

only the things I didn’t do

crackle after the blazing dies.

Love.