Stage Lines

‘Madhabilata’ is a distinctive Bengali flower, and many poems and songs have been penned down by Tagore about this particular flower. I don’t know its English name. I wonder whether it has an English name for that matter. Haven’t come across this plant in any other tropical country. It has a distinctive fragrance. It blossoms in a bunch, grasping a twig, with long slim stems and white and pale pink flowers on top of it like a crown.

I usually don’t break into Tagore’s songs but by chance when I come across this flower in the middle of pollution, where it is hard to acknowledge the fragrance of any flower, and still I do, I stop, look at the flower, and sing the famous Tagore song- “ Madhabilata dole, dole”.