Once in a blue moon
The beauty of a full moon shines upon us every month and is almost ubiquitous in poetry and music. A blue moon, however, rarely happens and is barely alluded to in the arts. But when it does appear, it becomes the centre of attention of the aesthetes and scientists alike.
That rare occasion came last night when the Blue Moon appeared. The second of two full moons in a calendar month is called a blue moon. The first full moon in the month had appeared on July 2.
The idiom “once in a blue moon” first surfaced in 1824 and refers to occurrences that happen rarely. In fact, a blue moon occurs, on an average, about every 32 months.
As the next blue moon will be seen in 2018, I along with my colleagues and friends decided to watch the beauty of last night's moon from the Haor region of Bangladesh.
Accordingly, we boarded a Sunamganj-bound night bus on July 29. Soon after the sun shone the next morning, a rainbow welcomed us in Sunamganj.
We watched the rare appearance of the moon and enjoyed the bright reflections of its light on the Haor. The remote fishing boats bobbed up and down on the water while a mischievous moon blissfully played hide and seek with the clouds.
As our trawler rowed through the haor water, I quoted from my favourite poet Jibanananda Das's poem “Chandnitey”: “Babylon kotha haraye giyechhey/ Mishor 'Oshur' kuashakalo/ Chand jege achhey aajo opolok/ Megher palokey dhalichhey aalo” (Babylon had passed into oblivion/ Egypt is shrouded in dark mist/ Yet the moon is wide-eyed/ pouring light unto the feathers of the clouds).
The rippling waves of the Tanguar Haor impressed us. We dived into the water and viewed the panoramic sunset in the Meghalaya Hills from Barikka Tila and savoured freshly fried fish. Meanwhile, the blue moon appeared on the eastern horizon in a celestial blue.
Beholding the blue moon from a boat down the Tanguar Haor was quite an extraordinary experience! The songs of the swift wind coupled with the rhythmic waves of the haor made us inhabitants of a different world. Clouds mingling with the moonlight generated mystifying images.
It was a three-day tour on a trawler and we enjoyed all the beauty of monsoon with clouds flying over the hills of Meghalaya beside Laur Gor, an ephemeral rainbow over the Jadukata river, amazing sunsets, clattering raindrops at night, midnight flashes of lightning and much more.
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