1877.] 
G. A. Grierson— Notes on the Rang pur Dialect. 
221 
quently baling out the water to catch the tiny fish which swarm therein. 
Thus the only people left at home are the guru, mahas'aya of the village 
school, and the pupils who are supposed to he under his care. The latter 
yield to the temptations of the cool spring season, as school-boys do all 
over the world, and, relieved of the supervision of the elder branches of the 
family, run truant and riotous throughout the village. Great is the damage 
done by them, and great the rage excited amid the elders on their return 
from their day’s work ; and, as no parent can see anything but good in his 
own offspring, the unfortunate guru is made the scapegoat for all the mis¬ 
chief done. The boys certainly have been naughty, but it is equally cer¬ 
tain that it is the malms'aya? s fault. This forms the subject of the episode 
related under the month of Phalguna. 
In Vaisakha, the wife remembers that there is rejoicing in every home, 
while she alone is miserable. The pada , or thatch covering, of the rice-stores 
of the past year is first broken in this month. While everything is happy, 
she can do nought but think of her husband, and be tortured by jealous 
suspicions as to his conduct in the far country. 
At the commencement of the rains, when storms are prevalent, and 
her heart is anxious for the wanderer tossed about amidst the tidal waters 
of the Sundarbans, the happier women of the village gibe at her and 
give her false news of the death of her husband. 
At the height of the rains, the Komda , a large fish-eating bird which 
haunts the banks of the Brahmaputra, utters its loud tub, tub, the livelong 
night. The people say that it is a ghost who is speaking, and every one 
considers it an omen of ill-luck when he hears it. 
In Bhadra, the Tal fruits ripen and fall to the ground. They lie 
there, and apparently decay, but if opened even after many days, they will 
be found to contain a clear transparent kernel of great delicacy. The wife 
is led to compare this wonderful power of retaining its beauty and fresh¬ 
ness, with her own comeliness, and to fear that before Mia returns, she may 
be an old and haggard woman. 
The rest of the monologue, I hope, explains itself, and so I introduce 
it without further preface. 
II II 
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