Monsoon Magic - June 7, 07

Every….Single….Time. Undeniably. Irrevocably. There’s no avoiding it. Each and every time the skies above me darken as the rumbling clouds gather before opening their arms wide open to set forth the cool, cool monsoon breeze, I wake up.

What I mean to say is that it may be in the wee hours of the early morning, say around 4 a.m., or during a lazy, weekend afternoon, when I’m totally lost in blissful slumber, that without a doubt, an imminent storm will wake me up. There simply has to be an invisible connection between the onslaught of rain and my biological clock. Mind you, I’m no light sleeper. Nothing short of a blaring alarm clock (or my ma banging on the door non-stop) will wake me up. So the only conclusion left to make is that I have an undeniable love affair with monsoon in all its glory.

It all starts with the calm before the storm. The so-called calmness is just a façade. You can actually sense the throbbing pulse of suppressed excitement of the imminent downpour to follow. I can feel it beating in my pulse and it literally makes me pace the floor of my bedroom and veranda… waiting… waiting… when suddenly, out of the blue, I’ll spy some errant leaves swirling in a burst of air and just scant seconds later that sensuous, erotic touch of the wind that’s so much a part of a storm will start ebbing and flowing. Go on. Take a deep, deep breath. Now wouldn’t you say that that has got to be the one of the richest legacies that Mother Nature has given us?

One reason I think I love the rain so much is because of all the wonderful memories that are tied to the monsoon season. I still recall how my ma would help me and my elder brother, Sakib, tear up used pages from our revision copies and make paper boats, big and small, to set adrift on the puddles and streams of rain water that would collect in the cervixes and hollows on the ground. Then there’s getting wet in the rain while feeling your toes sink in the warm, wet earth below and the grass tickling your feet. The best part about this is that you have all your clothes on which somehow heighten the enjoyment of it all. Don’t ask my why for I have no clue.

And how can we forget all the ritualistic food??! Piping hot tea or coffee with crispy muri bhaja with zesty shorishar tel and onions. Or if it’s lunch time then bhuna khichuri with spicy beef or fried fish. And since it is the monsoon season, it means that the dining table will include your homemade, yummy mango chutneys. The ones made by your nani or dadi always taste the best. Oh! Speaking of mangoes, they’re a constant element when it comes to dessert as well! And lichies, which we skin and refrigerate in a box so that they taste like frozen sorbets, makes their perfect dessert-dating partner.

See? It has to be the memories.

Just three days back, right on cue at 6 a.m., I woke up. I was a little disoriented at first and couldn’t put my finger on what it was exactly that had broken my sleep. Then I heard it. The wailing sound of the wind rushing through the leaves of the trees. I got up in a flash, all the sleep gone from my eyes and ran towards my window to throw back the drapes and the shutters. And smiled. Because I knew that in just a little while, I’d be on my way to making some more memories. Memories of monsoon magic.

Monsoon Memoirs

I laugh with raindrops,
Drunk with the fun of them…
And hold in my two hands
One hundred and one of them…

I read those four lines somewhere once – and my immediate thought was how appropriately it expressed the joy one feels when getting wet in the rain, on any given day, during the monsoon season.

If someone denies the innate earning to feel the touch of rain drops drum an addictive beat down on one’s person, I’d say that he or she were lying through their teeth. No matter the age, this desire will never, ever fade – it’s part of our childhood, our culture – in short, it’s in our blood.

Monsoon season is weaved with memories that repeat themselves every year like an ongoing love affair. The green garb of Mother Nature somehow seems more lush, the sky is always overcast as if the heavens above will open up any minute and a curtain of rain will come down, washing away all the stains and coaxing forth all things pure and cleansed. It’s as if the earth is re-born each time. There is the rather tense, caught-in-a-moment, oppressive mood right before it starts to rain and once it stops, a blissful feeling of peace permeates the air along with the unforgettable smell of the damp earth. And of course we get the refreshing cool, cool breeze – I even have a friend who opened an email account ‘xirxire’, a connotation of the phrase jhirjhire batash, because she loves it so much!

Here in the city, we see tokais jumping with unconcealed joy in the rain. We see the romantic picture of a couple huddling under an umbrella. We see families and friends enjoying a hot cup of tea with daal puri or jhaal muri or a lunch of dola-khichuri with bhuna-goshto and aachar. We see little kids playing hari-patil or making paper boats to float down a make-shift rain stream or puddle, dragging their elders into the fun, who are only too happy to join in. And can one forget cruising by inside a car and drawing childish nonsense on the fogged up windows? I STILL do that.

Farmers in the rural areas look up to the sky and shed tears of relief and joy in cadence with Mother Nature shedding the first onslaught of monsoon rains…filling rivers, canals and streams to the brim that help water parched lands and yield bumper harvests.

Monsoon memoirs thus entail romance, happiness, hope, good fortune and new beginnings. So it’s time to get drenched in all that is monsoon – time to get drunk with the fun of them.