Mango Blossoms

The mango tree which leans over our badminton court is bursting with flowers, more than ever before. Each time I see them I remember the song from Kalidas' great play Shakuntala. The unfaithful lover is compared to a honeybee:

Once in your passion for its honey trove
mango blossoms shook to your embraces;
now content to dwell with the lotuses,
have you forgotten the earlier love?

Sanskrit plays are a lot of fun - there's a jester, and a sutradaar, who introduces the play and tells you what's going on. There are songs and dances, just like in Indian movies today. And there's no such thing as tragedy. Things get sorted out by the end.

I looked for a translation of Shakuntala on the Net, and found one here (in PDF format). It's a nineteenth century translation, by Arthur W. Ryder, and is a bit flowery. There's a more modern translation, by G. N. Reddy, here.

Anyway, try it - it's a very pleasant window, open to a sensuous, lyrical, different world.