A Rickshaw Ride Through Wintry Mists

A Rickshaw Ride Through Wintry Mists

- Mahbubar Rahman

Notwithstanding the fact that, in this part of the world, we are not much familiar with Siberia and its quivering cold weather, but are somehow aware that Siberian plains occupy 4,950,000 square miles of land with long bitterly cold winter temperature falling to about-670c are the coldest inhabitated places in the world. We are also familiar with the savoring beauty of migratory birds and famous Siberian ducks who, in winter, spread their wings to take a long and enduring flight of few thousand miles and land on our marshy lands and waterbodies on their sojourn to take cozy and sultry breath in relatively warm weather than that of theirs, in our land.

At the end of the 15th century Tatar tribes setup their rule on the lowland east of the Urals. Siberia means sleeping land in Tatar. The sleeping land as the Tatars named it, bone-chilling cold waves and winds blow from Siberia and sweeps over Europe and North America in winter. The severity of Siberian winds continue to blow towards south to reach the southern hemisphere of the earth, but being prevented by the Himalayan range standing as solid giant walls to the benefit of the people living in Indo-Pak-Bangla subcontinent with the winds’ acceleration diminish towards advancing further south. Yet after touching the snow-capped Himalayan height, blasts of freezing Siberian winds in limited scale whisk out and sweeps India and Bangladesh in the winter time, generating bone-chilling cold waves with blankets of thick fogs and mists.