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Champa
Brimming with memories old
In its light golden look
What a scent, please behold
There beside the rippling brook
We call it golden champa
The smell relaxing and inspiring
Champa-necklace would wear Radha
When with Krishna she is dancing
In our lyrics of three thousand years
Champa finds a thousand mention
Sometimes in smile and then in tears
With Champa many a lovely session
With us it's now rainy season
Lovely Champa silk-clad
We savour the smell and stay to listen
The toop, toop, music sad
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Note:(1) Champa – A small, light gold coloured, a little longish, and intensely fragrant Indian flower. It is a common Indian name of girls too on obvious grounds.
(2) Radha, the female figure and Krishna, the male deity are mythological lovers steeped in divine romancing. Thousands of years old and still very much current romantic literature dealing with their love is an Indian asset.
(3) What you say in English ‘Pitter-pattered’, in Bengali we say ‘toop, toop’. Imagine the rains falling on a tin or concrete or leafy surface and feel the lyric in toop, toop.
Copyright ©
Probir Gupta
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