Did you find out who first coined the word ‘Meghdoot’? If not, read on.

Meghadoot, as I told you yesterday, literally means cloud messenger. The great poet Kalidasa had written a very lyrical poem which was named ‘Meghdoot’, one of the classics of Sanskrit literature from 5th century CE.
There are little more than 100 stanzas in Meghdoot, which has two parts: Purvamegha (Previous cloud) and Uttaramegha (Consequent cloud).

The story revolves around how the main character Yaksha, exiled from Kuber Nagari and stationed at Ramgiri in central India, delegates a passing raincloud to take his message to his far away wife and describes the path all along till north India to the city of Alka in the Himalayas. Experts tell us that the depiction is so vivid, so pictorial that a reader actually can experience as if he or she is flying along the cloud.

And you know what is the best part? The sky way described by Yaksha, means, described by Kalidasa, is highly similar to the trajectory of monsoon clouds even today. “Kalidasa’s Meghadootam is not only a poem of great beauty but an accurate scientific statement about the monsoon clouds and winds. What Kalidasa wrote about the monsoon 1600 years ago, can be said to be scientifically sound by today’s standards. In some respects, Kalidasa remains ahead of the scientists of the 21st century and they can learn from him and draw inspiration for doing further research in the monsoon,” wrote Prof R R Kelkar, former Director General of the India Meteorological Department, New Delhi (1998-2003), in his blog.

Read Pro Kelkar’s blog on Meghdoot here: https://rrkelkar.wordpress.com/2009/06/23/kalidasa-the-poet-with-a-scientist%E2%80%99s-mind/

That explains the importance of the name ‘Meghdoot’ for this series. And I hope you all had fun learning about our monsoon as much as I had while doing this series. Enjoy. Bye.