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TANGENTS

Our Landscape

BY IHTISHAM KABIR
andscape" - in our mind's eye the word recreates the world outdoors, the variety and greatness of nature, and our place within it. Forests and fields, rivers and lakes, mountains and deserts, and the lay of the land as it unfolds in front of our eyes - and, of course, the ceaseless work of painters and photographers to capture them inside a frame.
When you think about the geology of Bengal - an essentially flat delta washed by three large and countless small rivers - you might be tempted to dismiss its potential for impressive landscapes. But to patient observers, this land offers sweet rewards.
Take the ubiquitous fields of rice. We are treated to velvet green so soft they caress the eyes - not once but three times a year. The seedlings gradually turn yellow, then shiny golden. These come with seasonal perks, from the dew-laden leaves of winter mornings to the rain-drenched fields of monsoon showers. After harvest, the fields, holding only the stubs of the rice plants, wear a stark beauty.
Dotting the rice fields are the occasional vegetable patches; and farther away, the clumps of trees that cover villages and the river that snakes its way through the land.
Your transportation helps shape your experience of the landscape. A river-centric view from a boat is very different than the view from a car. On rivers, you travel through the belly of the villages, the small plots where villagers grow their own food, the schoolhouse and its children, a ghat for the boats and washing the rocks for laundry. The trains, running on tracks elevated several feet to avoid flooding, give you a bird's eye view of the land. Tiny villages come and go, with even tinier people going about their daily business. Bicycling is also an excellent means of discovering our landscape up-close.
Down south in Sundarban, where boat is the only way to travel, the landscape is dramatic and intense, with dense vegetation on a land sculpted by tides. It is also fraught with danger - sharp mangrove roots emerge from the ground, and the sleek, grey soil camouflages mud that can instantly swallow you waist-deep.
Up in the hills, tea gardens offer a contrast from the fields. Tea plants grow on rolling hills which curve in and out, convex and concave, like great dunes of green, punctuated overhead by shade trees of different shapes and sizes, while under your feet, tiny paths cut through the bush to provide access to the tea pickers.
Our flat land holds other pockets of surprise. For example, in Durgapur, Netrakona are beige hills cradling lakes bluer than the bluest turquoise. On outskirts of Sylhet is Ratargul, an unexpected, alien-looking fresh water swamp forest. A friend who visited Nilgiri in the Hill Tracts tells me clouds are frequent visitors to your rooms.
I wish we had preserved more forests. However, the old-growth trees in the dozen national parks such as Lawachara give you an idea of this land as it once was - a landscape still worth celebrating, cherishing and preserving.
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