The monsoon evokes varied emotions and brings to mind cherished memories from childhood
There’s something Janus-like about the rain. It’s easy to be poetic at the start of the monsoon season, when summer’s grip is loosened by the first sharp showers. Take a morning after, when the earth is like a fruit cake, moist and indefinably fragrant. When the first cup of tea tastes different because it has rained overnight and that special morning light, washed clean, peeps in through the windows. When flowers, bruised and spent, lie on the tousled grass. When a large family of parrots, freshly green and vocal, wing out of the guava tree they treat as home. These reflections at the start of the monsoon season, when one can afford to be romantic about, not resigned to, the rain. Soon enough, new species of winged things, some too small to see, will be disturbed from the gardens into houses. Termites and other insects will burrow their way up in sandy channels through cracks in the floor. Garden mice, their dens flooded, will seek refuge indoors. And in most houses, incessant rain creates large patches of damp which in turn creates new, free artwork for walls and ceilings. Soon enough too, poorly maintained roads will get flooded as choked drains overflow, traffic snarls will become commonplace and the average person’s life and daily commutes to work will get totally thrown out of gear.
I grew up in a place where the rain plays a larger than average part in one’s life. The vagaries and characteristics of the south-west and north-east monsoon, quite different in character from each other became part of the fabric of everyday living, as did the ultimate accessory that ruled our lives the humble umbrella.
Esta historia es de la edición July 2016 de Eclectic Northeast.
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