by Dhanya M
“Like a rain-cloud of July hung low with its burden of unshed showers…” ~ Gitanjali, Rabindranath Tagore
What do you feel when you see the first rain cloud of the season adorning the sky? What do you feel about monsoon? The hopeless romantic in me calls monsoon as nature’s poetry. A friend says she feels romantic. Another remembers seeing rain falling over the sea. Yet another goes into the mood to write poetry. But there is one who says she hates the dampness. Someone chips in with ‘moody’. There can be many, many more moods associated with monsoon. Monsoon thus becomes a shared experience and at the same time a very individual emotion. It is the one phenomenon that connects the whole of India, north and south, east and west, the bustling metro city and the quiet little village. Rain traverses the subcontinent like the seasoned traveller it is, visiting places and events and peopleevery year. And what about us? We wait through the scorching summer, looking out for forecasts about the rain. And we enjoy the warm smell of the earth when the first drop falls. We get soaked in a sudden downpour, like the coy heroine of a movie. (Unlike the heroine, what awaits us will not be a song and dance routine and the eventual rendezvous with the hero, but a possible rendezvous with the flu virus)
Then – when the road gets clogged, the drains overflow, trees fall and block the road, the cloudy sky dampens everything including our spirits – rain becomes that annoying friend who shows up at the most inconvenient of times. We slog through the rain, pulling our clothes up, trying to ignore all the germs that come from the muddy water, changing plans to accommodate the schedule of rain. And on the odd Sunday afternoons when luckily at home, we enjoy the rain, munching on crispy hot samosa (or pakoda or whatever), staring dreamy-eyed at the falling rain with our favourite music playing on… And finally, after never ending traffic blocks and clammy evenings, misty winter mornings slowly start appearing and we miss the rain again.
As someone who is from the state where the ‘monsoon onset’ officially occurs – Kerala – I have always felt awed at the aptness of comparing the monsoon cloud to an elephant. Have you seen the majesty of the approaching first rainfall of the season? The western sky starts to get dark. Slowly, but steadily, the colour changes from a bluish grey to deep grey, to a near-black. There is a deep rumble of a far-away thunder. The wind blows, from the west, slowly pushing the mammoth cloud. The cloud gets deeper, thicker, more menacing every minute. People scramble looking for cover, women rush about pulling clothes from clotheslines, shopkeepers try to push their display wares as far away from rain’s path as possible, children play even more frantically and the air fills with a kind of electrifying anticipation. And suddenly, so suddenly you forget to blink, the first raindrop falls. The first few drops fall hesitantly like a first kiss. Those who are out on the street cover their heads with whatever they have in hand – umbrella, bag, file, plastic cover – anything. The drops start falling faster, faster. Then suddenly the tempo increases as if the inhibition has ended. There is no point in slowing down now. It pours. It just pours. No finesse. No slowing down. No patience anymore. The rain just falls. If you are near a field or an open space, you get to see the curtain of rain moving with the wind. In seconds the first puddle gets formed. The thirsty, parched earth is gone. The drains swell and while you are looking, the road starts filling up with muddy water. The first flow washes everything it finds. Wind accompanies rain in the heavenly symphony. The tempo increases still and the rain lashes out holding hands with the mad wind. Then, slowly, the rain stops. The last notes of drizzle are heard. A clear, golden yellow sunlight fills every place. The air feels washed, clean. The leaves are burdened with diamond-like drops. The water is still flowing on the road, and a faint rainbow appears on the sky, like a new bride’s blush. Vehicles are splashing water everywhere. People are discarding the safety of buildings and coming out. Umbrellas get folded. Dust is gone. Dirt is washed away. The monsoon has majestically arrived.
For me (and many others like me), memories of monsoon in Kerala are intricately laced with memories of school. We could ‘predict’ the onset accurately. Because, rain always showed up at our doors the day school reopened after summer holidays. If school reopened on the first of June, the monsoon started on the first of June. If the reopening got delayed by a few days, the monsoon also waited and punctually arrived as we got ready for the first day of a new grade. The adult in me says this must be a case of selective memory, but I don’t remember starting a school year without the accompanying opera of monsoon. One would get fully wet by the time one reached class. The smell of new uniform, new books and bags mingled with dampness… I am sure you also have your own monsoon memories – in one way that connects me and you.
So, let me come back to my original question. What do you feel when you hear the word ‘monsoon’? Right now, while I write this, the sun is mercilessly glaring outside, with no sign of rain. The air looks dusty and dry. My new umbrella and I are waiting… hopefully, by the time you read this, we would have gone out in the first showers of the monsoon season this year.
Dhanya is currently pursuing her PhD at the Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. She loves nature, music, dance, science and the words. Her too-imaginative mind sees poetry in motion everywhere around and she writes down some of it that chooses to flow through her.
