The fragrance of flowers keeps sleep away

Let me tell you the story of our house. My grandfather has a great passion for trees. Grandfather believes that trees can understand human speech. He would often sit on the bench beneath the trees and whisper something to them. There's no tree that grandfather hasn't planted. Our house has every tree, absolutely every tree! I saw my first bamboo grove in our house long before I encountered one in my exam notebook. Hehe... Above that grove, the same childhood moon that belonged to Kajla didi still rises today. Which tree isn't there in our house? From mango, blackberry, jackfruit, coconut, betel nut to every flowering tree, medicinal plant, and timber tree in the kingdom—you'll find them all. We used to climb onto the roof and pick blackberries, staining our lips and mouths purple as we ate. Standing on the tin roofs of the gardeners' quarters, we'd eat kamranga mixed with salt and chili powder. We'd knock down mangoes and guavas with slingshots. After eating mangoes, if we threw the pits into the wet soil, we'd watch tender brown-leafed mango saplings emerge. Along the road beside our house, we cousins would race against each other. In the merciless afternoon sun, we'd throw stones at the large snails, breaking them. In the evenings, we'd arrange elaborate doll weddings under the trees. At night in our garden, crickets would call. We'd jump around catching fireflies and trap them in our shirt pockets. When we rubbed the fireflies against our clothes, somehow streaks of light would merge into the threads of our shirts. We'd catch them and trap them in bottles, then run around the courtyard. The nighttime courtyard felt like an enormous peaceful river. We'd roll around in that courtyard under the moonlight.
Many people still come to our garden house for picnics. When I go to sleep, I see moonlight filtering through the gaps between those simple, kind-hearted trees. In the morning, while brushing my teeth and walking through the grass, I talk with the birds. They talk back too. I mean, it's a conversation. A pair of mynahs have built their nest on a mango tree branch. Their two tiny babies just move their beaks and heads. At the top of the palm tree, a weaver bird's nest sways in the breeze. They bring twigs and straw in their beaks from somewhere to build their nests. It looks so beautiful. I can find joy in everything. I learned this from my mother in childhood. Mother says you must learn to find happiness in small pleasures. Those little joys are actually very big. I have learned this. Take, for example, when morning dew sparkles on this tender green grass before me—that alone is enough to make me happy, I need nothing more. The most fun is watching mynah fights. They all deliberately pick fights with each other. One tries to peck another off the nest. I keep thinking, they're not human after all. So how did they learn to fight like this? The doel birds in our house call in different sweet melodies at different times. Watching the fluttering of the tailor birds and sparrows makes me desperately want to live like them. Those rascal woodpeckers seem to sharpen their beaks by making the trees cry with their pecking! The mischievous squirrels in the guava trees somehow vanish from sight in an instant. The tailor birds used to nest in the croton plant beside our house. They would dance around and have little babies. I'd watch them every day, just feeling good and giggling quietly. Alas! Even a little storm would turn everything upside down. After storms, I could never find them anywhere. I remember one game very well. Have you ever called like a cuckoo? I used to call, I mean I would call almost every afternoon. If you can call like a cuckoo along with the cuckoo, then the cuckoo keeps calling and calling. The louder I called, the louder it would call back. It thinks its mate is calling. It calls and calls, its voice gets hoarse, maybe it even coughs, but it can never find its mate. How could it? I'm the one calling! How foolish they are! And we humans take advantage of this to tease them endlessly, endlessly. But they're not all that innocent either. Do you know what they do? They can't build their own nests, so they sneak into crow's nests and lay their eggs. Those crows are pretty stupid too. Thinking they're their own eggs, they start incubating the cuckoo eggs and hatch the babies. They raise those babies, and then when they realize, "Oh my! This isn't my child!" they peck the babies and throw them down. It's quite amusing, yet painful too.
My grandfather believes that the characteristics of an ideal Bengali are having cowsheds full of cattle and ponds full of fish. Grandfather had achieved that too. But now you can't find workers like before, so grandfather's cowshed isn't as full as it used to be. Still, we have some cows. They give milk, we drink it. In childhood, I'd see people come to our house just to see our enormous cows. Cows understand human language, they understand affection. When you pet them under their necks, they close their eyes and stay quiet, extending their necks further. But the male cattle are quite naughty. When you try to pet them, they charge at you, showing their horns. I've seen calves being born. They too suffer just like humans, but being animals, they can't express their pain in words. You know, just hours after being born, the calf gets up and starts jumping! When the mother cow licks the calf with her tongue, that's it! It can stand up. Yet how many months does it take for human babies to stand? My grandfather used to love the cows dearly, loving them like his own children. Every time he had to sell them, how grandfather would cry! At those times, I'd always remember Gafur from the story "Mahesh."
Our house never lacked cats and dogs. They would just come from somewhere on their own. They're like doves of happiness, after all. Wherever they find food and affection, they stay. What mischief I used to do with cats and dogs in childhood! I'd bathe puppies in the pond. I had a small quilt that I'd wrap around puppies and put them to sleep on our bed. I'd hum, "The baby sleeps, the neighborhood rests, the bargis came to the land..." Mother would laugh. And I'd catch and hold cats to see what happens to their pupils when they're scared. You'll see, normally a cat's pupils look like thin lines, but when scared, those pupils become round, making them look just like human pupils. Remember I told you about saving a cat's life during Puja? You know, I met that cat again after two days. When I called to it, it stopped for a moment, looked at me, and said something with "meow-meow" before leaving. That was probably its second thanks, just like when I saved its life, it had looked at me helplessly and given its first thanks with the same "meow-meow." Humans forget to say thanks, but they never forget. They're innocent, you see. Maybe when you're too clever, you don't feel like saying thanks. When cats have babies, they change locations every few days. When moving, they very gently bite their babies to carry them to new places. Their love is beautiful to watch. Male cats are quite naughty like you. They steal and eat food. Especially fish and milk. Dogs are much better than them. What they do when someone calls them affectionately! When petted, they lie down spreading all four paws and wag their tails, or crawl closer and quietly, peacefully tilt their heads to look at people's faces and listen. They don't let any stranger near our house, chasing them away with barking. Yet no matter how long it's been since I've been home, they never bark at me. They can recognize my scent. Even if they can't recognize me from far in the dark, when they come close and smell me, they recognize me correctly and quietly wag their tails. When they have babies, they don't let anyone near them. They become somewhat frenzied then. They think humans might harm their babies. There are some people who are truly inhuman. Do you know what they do? They put those tiny babies in sacks and dump them elsewhere. Then the mother dog, unable to nurse her babies, calls out in unbearable agony with pitiful cries. Puppies call out with soft whimpering sounds. It's quite soothing and pleasant to hear. When walking through Kataban road, I look at the pet shops on the roadside, listen to their calls, and smile to myself. Have you ever seen how cats' and dogs' eyes glow in the dark of night?
When it rains heavily, the water in our pond rises considerably. How happy the silly fish become! In their joy, they keep jumping up every now and then. Sitting by the pond, watching all this, I feel like never returning to Dhaka. My favorite flower is beli, then shiuli, and there's another one—kathbeli. You must know kathbeli flowers—they grow into huge trees. You see two types of kathbeli: light yellow and pink. My favorite color is white. I want to make a flower garden in the future where clusters of white flowers will bloom. On one side of the garden will be shiuli trees, and on the other side will be huge kathbeli trees. Morning sleep will be broken by the fragrance of flowers, and opening my eyes, I'll see my white flower garden filled with red and blue butterflies. The garden will also have hasnahena flower trees. My evenings will be intoxicated evenings. Just thinking of all this makes me feel good. You know, my little sister planted a shiuli tree by the pond. During Durga Puja when we went home, every morning we two sisters would collect shiuli flowers together. The ground under the little shiuli-laden tree looks like someone has spread a white sheet. We two sisters would shake the tree to bring down more shiuli flowers. One sheet upon another sheet. My mother has planted a kamini tree a little distance away by the pond steps. How wonderful it feels to sit on those stone-built steps on full moon nights and sing! The moon's reflection plays in the pond water's shadow. The entire pond water seems like an enormous plate of light. Sometimes like the white vast field after the crops are harvested. In the waves, the magical moon seems to sway too, and in the fragrance of nearby kamini flowers, the surroundings feel like another beautiful small world suddenly born within the ugly big world. Meanwhile, from the distant bamboo grove, fireflies emerge like soft silver lanterns spreading light. On my mobile phone plays: "The dam of the moon's laughter has broken..."

Evening shadows descend, restless winds stir..............in this beautiful golden twilight......... evening comes again........ the hour for reading poetry has arrived......... O moon, hold your moonlight steady........ this night is yours and mine.......this abstract night is mine........ why doesn't the moon come to my room......... two hearts today are not of two people...........if you could imagine leaving everything behind, alas............ on that star-filled night...........it's very late now............ I'll speak with those twinkling stars in the sky..........every single track is my personal favorite. I just keep feeling, keep feeling, such moonlight as this, even if I die, that too would be good............ but damn these mosquito bites won't let me die in peace. So I'm forced to return indoors.
Tell me, you listen to a lot of music. Here's a quiz for you: I'll speak with those twinkling stars in the sky.......... whose song is this?