Ode to Monsoon

By the beginning of June after enduring the harshness of the hot and humid Indian summer season from March, the nation starts looking skyward for the rain clouds to appear. The parched earth and roasted humans in utter despair go to their Gods, weathermen, and astrologers to hear the good news of the arrival of monsoon.

Their huge errors in predictions in the past don’t stop the hapless populace from dabbling with the discussion over rains even if it’s just in the discussion. The pain and hope behind this trepidation are like the hopes of one of the lovers in a broken relationship for the other to return.

The arrival of the monsoon on the Kerala coast is the most awaited event in the month of June.

Why not, when most of our rivers are rain-fed and agriculture is mostly dependent on timely and adequate rains and most of our festivals follow the agrarian calendar? Government and economists prepare themselves for the consequences if it doesn’t rain. Our lives directly or indirectly are dependent on monsoons. In certain years it's timely and adequate and in some it's scarce and so more that it calls for national emergency response. This annual climatic event does something so magical to everything living and non-living who dwell on this vast sub-continent so routinely that all have learned to dance to the tune of it.

I am not the first one who has chosen to write about it nor will be the last one to do so.

With the first monsoon rain humanity erupts into joy. The postings of pictures, videos, reels, and songs on social media by the citizens indicate the magnitude of joy that they are experiencing. Tomes of literature have been written on the monsoon. In the movies, rain is used as a metaphor for ecstasy, blessings, and love. Not only the peacocks are seen serenading their potential mates, but heroines also break into song and dance to celebrate the spirit of the season. 

In the novel Train to Pakistan, Khuswant Singh while describing the most violent episode of the subcontinent’s history couldn’t stop himself from pausing the narrative to describe the first rain of monsoon. He uses three pages to describe it and I am sure he would have held out to the editor’s request or pressure to truncate it. It’s the best description of monsoon I have ever read. Go through the best three paragraphs of his narrative.

“The dust hanging in the air settles on your books, furniture, and food; it gets in your eyes and ears and throat and nose.

This happens over and over again until the people have lost all hope. They are disillusioned, dejected, thirsty, and sweating. The prickly heat on the back of their necks is like emery paper. There is another lull. A hot petrified silence prevails. Then comes the shrill, strange call of a bird. Why has it left its cool bosky shade and come out in the sun? People look up wearily at the lifeless sky. Yes, there it is with its mate! They are like large black-and-white bulbuls with perky crests and long tails. They are pied-crusted cuckoos who have flown all the way from Africa ahead of the monsoon. Isn’t there a gentle breeze blowing? And hasn’t it a damp smell? And wasn’t the rumble which drowned the birds’ anguished cry the sound of thunder? The people hurry to the roofs to see. The same ebony wall is coming up from the east. A flock of herons fly across. There is a flash of lightning which outshines the daylight. The wind fills the black sails of the clouds, and they billow out across the sun. A profound shadow falls on the earth. There is another clap of thunder. Big drops of rain fall and dry up in the dust: A fragrant smell rises from the earth. Another flash of lightning and another crack of thunder like the roar of a hungry tiger. It has come! Sheets of water, wave after wave. The people lift their faces to the clouds and let the abundance of water cover them. Schools and offices close. All work stops. Men, women and children run madly about the streets, waving their arms and shouting “Ho, Ho,”- hosannas to the miracles of the monsoon.

The monsoon is not like ordinary rain which comes and goes. Once it is on, it stays for two months or more. Its advent is greeted with joy. Parties set out for picnics and litter the countryside with the skins and stones of mangoes. Women and children make swings on branches of trees and spend the day in sport and song. Peacocks spread their tails and strut about with their mates; the woods echo with their shrill cries.”

When David Attenborough in one of his documentaries describes the Himalayas and Monsoon in his calming, soothing voice …“. Warm winds from India filled with moisture are forced upwards by the Himalayas to cool which causes clouds to form thus monsoon is born…” the background music and the dramatic time-lapse video beautifully captures the drama and the magic this phenomenon creates over this vast geography.

It almost seems as if God is manifesting himself before humankind.

Early humans realized early how closely nature is intertwined with its existence and chose to respect and worship nature. No wonder very early humans conceptualized God in his role as the creator, nourisher, nurturer, and destroyer by looking at the same aspects in various natural phenomena. It’s only a few hundred years back from the present era, humans as a departure from their earlier convictions saw mother earth as a resource to be exploited for its insatiable greed triggering what we now know as Global Warming and Climate Change.

We are witness to the changing patterns of rain.

Rains have become erratic. Slow drizzle over weeks which was good for farming and absorption into the soil has become non-existent now and what we witness is a cloud burst-like situation over a limited area for a few days which erodes the most precious commodity of the nation - top soil and causes flash floods and immense human misery.

If the rich soils and monsoon rains have been instrumental in developing us from our settled agriculturist days into a civilization of 140 cr to recon with because of our literature, and wisdom; how a changed monsoon pattern triggered by climate change stands to change us is a matter of grave national concern.