A Monsoon Diary by Julian Crandall Hollick Introduction: Monsoon is not another word for rain. As its original Arabic name mausam indicates, it is actually a season. There's a summer monsoon as well as a winter monsoon. But it is only the southwest winds of summer make a mausam. - the season of rains. As for the winter monsoon it’s simply rain in winter. It's like a quick shower on a cold and frosty morning. It leaves you chilled and shivering. Yes, it's good for the crops, but people pray for it to end. Luckily, it does not last very long. A few years ago, I was asked to make a program by the BBC about the Monsoon. At the time, Alexander Frater’s “Chasing the Monsoon” was everybody’s idea of how to translate the experience into media. It’s a justly popular book, but I’ve never really warmed to it. I doesn’t work for me for three reasons: first, because is very different in North from South India; in character and culture - in Kerala there’s a whole culture of oil baths, in the north, Krishna imagery is basic to any experience of the monsoon; second, every year’s monsoon follows different rhythms (one year it may fail, another come early, often and hard and then peter out after only a month; third, every person experiences his or her own monsoon differently. I decided therefore to live the 1996 monsoon in Kanpur and the surrounding countryside. Kanpur is in central northern India, on the banks of the Ganges in the heart of Krishna culture. Other people, in different places in India, or even in the same place, would experience the mausam in totally different ways. Even the rain could feel different. What is certain is that the foods, rituals and folklore associated with the Monsoon would be different. So I made a conscious decision not to chase the monsoon, but try and establish a sense of place and people, to give my monsoon roots and context in time and place. This is my diary of that monsoon. June 3rd: Tivari prefers driving at night. And it's cooler. So we left Delhi for Kanpur around 4 PM. On the old GT Road via Aligarh and Etah. We stopped at a dhabba for chai around 9:30 and the car wouldn't restart. Tivari eventually stuffed a rag in somewhere. And the engine, of course, then re-started immediately! Near Kanpur, quite a lot of tree limbs were down and the road was wet. The air was also much cooler. We were rattling along about half an hour behind a dust storm. Finally we reached Kanpur and got to bed around 3 AM. Now, we just have to sit, or sleep.....and wait. June 5: it’s very muggy. The sky is like porcelain. Waiting for the monsoon in May and early June is exhausting. Shade shrinks and all but disappears. Gentle breezes become merely a memory. The sun never seems to go down. And it seems to lick the few drops of dew before the fevered earth can even moisten its lips. It just blazes away, all day long, in a cloudless sky, drying up every smidgin of moisture. Burning, scorching everything. I’ve asked Indian friends how they survive this awful month. During the Rainy Season, Shahid Siddiqui’s bedroom in his three story house in Delhi’s Nizamuddin, shrinks and becomes a virtual one-room apartment. The entire family live, sleep and eat here all summer and Rainy Season. Why? Simple, because only this room has an air conditioner. “You wait for it for so many months. As soon as the summers come in April, you start dreaming of the monsoon. April-May, heavy. The heat of June is killing. And you're waiting and waiting for the monsoons..... only a person who lives in India, specially north India, will understand what rains mean to a man who has to survive temperatures of 44 to 45 degrees Centigrade every day. So rains are beautiful.” Shahid grew up in a traditional Muslim area in the Old City. As a child, he was a peeping Tom: “..people used to have their love sessions in those tehkanas, and we young boys and girls, we used to watch what was happening underground....in fact, lots of amorous meetings used to take place because all the people were underground during those hot summer days. But everybody was waiting for the monsoon, everybody was praying for the monsoon...” 1 Subashni Ali, a former Communist member of the Lok Sabha (Parliament) in Kanpur, hates this waiting. “The great dividing thing is the monsoon...and the whole waiting for rains...it's the most dramatic thing that happens in India..and I suppose also in an agricultural society it is so crucial to existence that it is highly dramatized - the whole wait for rain.....by mid-June, I start physically panting for the monsoon, even though I am not a person who admires the heat too much......there is a terrible sense of waiting for something that is not happening. And I can't describe. I mean, it's just really, it's a terrible feeling. It's like you gotta burst, you know! It's very unbearable. Just this blue, harsh sky, and that sun just pouring down and the earth cracking, you know, it's horrible.” June 8th: There was breeze today. But the wrong sort of breeze! It’s called the Lu. and it can drive you, quite literally, mad. Khushwant Singh, the novelist, describes it thus: “The sun makes an ally of the breeze. It heats the air until it becomes the Lu ..even in the intense heat, the lu's caresses are sensuous and pleasant. It brings up prickly heat, and produces a numbness which makes the head nod and the eyes heavy with sleep. And for the old, it can bring on a stroke that takes its victims as gently as the breeze bears a fluff of thistledown.” Lu winds come from the deserts of Rajasthan. The locals call this final period of intense heat Mirgassa. Begins at the full moon and lasts fifteen days. The farmers have many sayings about the Mirgassa: That the sun is so hot that deer turn black; That any rain drops that fall during this period are "Golden Drops." Pure sarcasm. Golden Drops spell disaster! A good monsoon needs the land to be as hot and dry as possible, to create a vacuum that will suck in the wet, cool rain clouds from the Arabian Sea and up into the Gangetic plains. Premature rains means the real thing goes off at half-cock. June 13th: Went to meet Chhunar at his house in Bhitthur village this afternoon. Bhitthur's about fifteen miles northwest of Kanpur, on the banks of the Ganga. Chhunar says the heat this year is later and worse than normal. And it's too hot even for sleeping. These summer months Chhunar grows watermelons and cantaloupes in the flat sandbanks that make the Ganges a mere modest country river, crossed here by a pontoon bridge. In two weeks these pontoons will be un-roped and stored high on land. The river will swell and quicken in flow: a ferry will then be the only means to cross to farms half a mile away, protected because raised on banks fifteen feet above the river. Chhunar says days and nights waiting for the monsoon to come are no fun: “ If it rains and it gets slightly cool that is when we feel sleepy. Otherwise, you don't feel like sleeping because it is so hot.” But does he look forward to the rains? “Yes, desperately, we are waiting for the rains.” “What if the rains are late, does it affect your crops?..Does it affect what you earn?” “Yes, if the rains are late, then it is going to affect our lives...because once we stop the farming on the sand, the next stage is that we go in for a different crop that is dependent on lake water and the rains, and if the rains are late then we’re in trouble.” Chhunar says it's cooler in Bhitthur than in the city. There are plenty of trees to give shade. And there's also a breeze off the Ganga. Chhunar goes to get his boat ready. That's how he earns a living in the rainy season While we watch the kids noisily washing their buffaloes in the river. Bhittur appears to be an insignificant little place. Dusty, crumbling walls reveal wafer-thin bricks that could be fifty... or five hundred years old, decaying and disintegrating ghats (steps) leading down to the river from crumbling temples, porous and blackened by decades of constant humidity, in some cases riven by deep cracks as if an earthquake had once struck Bhitthur. Lots of people still come to worship at the temples in Bhitthur because it's supposed to be the place where Brahma finished creating the Universe. According to legend the sages became worried: Master, how will Man come to know that Brahma actually created the Universe here? So Brahma placed his wooden sandals by the riverside. The sandals sank, but the nail between the big toe and the smaller toes didn't get washed away. And there it is, smack bang in the middle of the ghat that leads down to the Ganga. That's why people come here. In the afternoon, I pay a visit to Harish Shankar Shukla - the senior pandit in Bhitthur. I need reassurance that divine intervention is on hand, if needed. “If the rains are late are there special pujas or ceremonies that you, as a Pandit, will practice to try make the rains come? Recite the Shiv Purana! That's what he recommends. You see, Shiv's wife Parvati begged her husband to tell her a particular story she really wanted to hear. Shiv said "Okay! But you must give me your Third Eye in exchange. Its heat is scorching the earth and destroying everything that's living! " 2 Parvati, reluctantly, agreed. Shiv was full of happiness and gave the appropriate thanks. “And did it rain?” I ask. “Of course,” says Shukla. “So now the Sanyasis and Pandits, they get together and create Yagyas (bonfires) - and a number of pandits get together, and they burn a number of things in that - like ghee and that, they commit sacrifices - and it's said that the fumes which come out of the fire, they rise up into the sky and that causes humidity, and that is why it rains. Pandit dares make a prediction: “On the 19th of June, a star known as Adran Naksh - Nakshatra - is going to shine, and on that day, on the 19th, I guarantee you as a pandit, because it is written in the Vedas, it will rain on that particular day. So that day you can come to me at any time. My door is always open to you!. I shall be dancing in the rain.” June 15th: This morning I went to the Railway Slum Dwellers Colony in Sarvodya Nagar. There's a railway line that runs behind expensive private houses, all with antenna dishes on their walls and Japanese cars in their driveways. Grass has been growing for a long time between the tracks. It’s clear very few, if any, trains ever rumble down this piece of lawn. On either side of the railway track are about 135 houses. Which means about two thousand people live in this particular basti. Sushila, a short woman in her thirties, doesn’t beat about the bush: “My name is Sushila. I live in the Kanpur Railways Slum Dwellers Colony...We have a major problem with electricity because though we do have a municipal lamp-post it's not working most of the time. We’ve tried to get it repaired. Even when it was, it promptly broke again. Now it’s permanently out! We have to come and go in the darkness...we don't have any electric supply. You can't do anything. The children just go and sit under the trees. They sit in the shade and try to keep cool. Maybe they might get affected by the Loo. But then they have to go out and sit for some kind of breeze..” With the usual consequences: lots of sickness among the kids. Made worse, of course, by the rains. “Yes, the Rains are a real problem. The minute is starts raining, our houses get flooded. There is no way we can get the water out of here. We have to get up in our sleep and bail the water out of our houses.” “But how much water is there usually? Are you underwater?” No stopping Sushila now. “When it’s raining, we can get up to two feet of water in our houses. Sometimes, we wake up soaked through.....After the last rains we’ve built a small wall in front of our houses. I don't know how effective it will be when the rains are heavy. But we think it’ll maybe prevent the water entering our houses.” One woman called Leela is gently pushed forward by the others. Sushila points to her with pride: “Take a look at this woman who is pregnant. It is so hot...we can’t do anything to help her stay cool, make her at least comfortable. She has to suffer through it.” “When is your baby due?” “In one month” she whispers. June 19th: Still no sign of the monsoon. And today is the day, according to the pandit, without fail..rain... or ...shine. It's been one of the worst days of this season, at least for this last week. One could easily say this was the worst day. Everybody felt the oppression. And coupled with the fact that there is a lot of electricity breakdowns, it was completely awful. One couldn't even rest, because the moment one lay down with a fan on, it would go off. Just six hours of electricity a day. That means no ceiling fans, no air conditioner, no computer, no battery charger, no telephone. The reason can’t be the Monsoon. It hasn’t even started! The probable culprits: an ancient and chronically overloaded distribution system, where one transformer blows on average a day, and, most probably, cuts from the Uttar Pradesh Electricity Generating Board which hasn’t been paid by the city of Kanpur for over two years. This is their legal revenge, and, of course, all in the name of good economics and good government. June 23rd: It seems to be raining everywhere but here. But -- the wind's picking up. And you can tell the birds are agitated. So maybe something is finally going to happen! And inky-black clouds are racing in from the West. I want those clouds to rain directly on ME. Please clouds. Please! 3 Now, the Indian's attitude towards clouds is fundamentally different from that of the Westerner. To the one, clouds are symbols of hope. To the other of despair. The Indian scans the heavens, and if clouds blot out the sun his heart fills with joy. The Westerner looks up, and if there is no silver lining edging the clouds his depression deepens....The Indian talks of someone he respects and looks up to as the great shadow, like the one cast by the clouds when they cover the sun..the Westerner, on the other hand, looks on a shadow as something evil and refers to someone of dubious character as a shady type. Dark rain clouds are synonymous with Lord Krishna. In fact, one of Krishna's other names is Ghanashyam. Shyam means the Dark One. So when a woman sings to a rain cloud she might be singing about something else entirely! O Shyam! I saw a rain-cloud bursting. And I burst into tears myself. The clouds massed black and grey, And it rained for hours on end. Wherever I look there's water, nothing but water. My love, you've gone far away. And here I am soaking wet standing, just waiting for you! The man’s attitude is a little different: “The kohl-black clouds came rushing in. The peacocks screamed: the frogs croaked; the earth was tense, just about out of patience, holding its breath. Scratching herself with a back-scratcher, my pious sister-in-law declared: "There will be a storms. The clouds will get to go wherever they want. You'll have all the fun. You'll walk in the sand at the edge of the river. With quivering lips and shining eyes, rain-showers will cool your body. That promiscuous east wind will caress you, make love to you. And the clouds will fawn over you, chase you with all the ardour of a father who suddenly sees a potential husband for his unmarried daughter. Oh yes! You'll have all the fun, my pleasure-loving brother-in-law!" I burst into laughter. The peacocks cried. I got goose bumps all over. The frogs started croaking, and my heart began to pound. The crickets began their shrill electric trill. I was on fire. And all the time, the black clouds came crowding in. More, and more, and more!!” Each “more” rising a degree, ever upwards, ever more fevered, like the cries of the Megh Papia” or “Brainfever bird,” which is said to precede the coming of the monsoon by a few days, blown in across the Arabian Sea by the accelerating winds. I have never seen this bird, only ever heard it in tall trees a hundred yards or more away. Khushwant Singh, who is also an amateur ornithologist, knows a lot about these birds: “They don't make their own nests. They're parasites. They steal other birds' nests and lay their eggs in them. This megh papiha - the pied-created cuckoo - uses the nest of these babblers to offload their bastard offspring, leave their eggs; hence being cuckolded. They are also very noisy. The English have done him some injustice by calling him the "brain fever." bird. Well, once it gets into your head you also think it's calling brain fever. But it's not. The Maharastran rendering of the cry is paus ala, which means the rains are coming.” June 20: Yesterday was a tease! It did not rain! And today it's very muggy again. This morning, I felt absolutely no get up and go. Like a plant without water. My assistant Indu says it's because I'm losing too many salts when I sweat. She told me to go out and buy lots of bananas. I did. I ate six. And I feel like a new man! Ready to face the heat and humidity again. But it would still be nice if I had a more reliable way of knowing when it is going to finally rain. We take the car and head out towards Bhittur, where it’s always cooler than in the city. We stop to talk to Mohan Singh, who farms forty five bighas, (20 acres) on the Kalyanpur Road. Mohan is doing some last-minute repairs to his tube well. By now I’m getting desperate. I don’t know how much more of this summer heat I can take. In the paper I read how the monsoon has broken to our East and West. In fact, everywhere but here. “As a farmer, how do you know when the monsoon is about to come? What are the signs?” Mohan Singh has a fail-safe method: “Ants! Ants carry their eggs to safety, this is the first sign that the monsoon is about to arrive. And these small frogs start coming out, and then obviously rain clouds.” “So if I see lots of ants carrying..eggs, and then lots of little frogs come out, then that means it is going to rain in twenty four hours?” 4 “Absolutely! It’s a sure sign that the monsoon is on the verge of arriving.” “And what does today’s weather tell you?” “That it won’t come soon! There's still time.” “Ten days, two weeks?” “Hard to say. Right now, I have to irrigate the fodder for my cattle by tube well. I just can't depend on the rain!” June 26: It has come! Around 2 in the morning. It must have started a few minutes before. I rush out and just watch the rain steadily accelerating, from under a lintel. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much rain coming so fast, so hard. In meteorological terms. the Monsoon is like a crab. There's a Western pincer that travels up the ghats before swinging inland over Rajasthan. And an Eastern pincer that rides up the Bay of Bengal, and then, in its turn, swings inland towards the Ganga and the heartland of northern India. Where they meet, there's a collision of almost cosmic proportions. And it seems to be right here, over Kanpur! In the West, we have sheet lightning and the sudden clap of thunder. But here, it's rolling lightning, and rolling thunder. As if the Gods are playing a furious game of marbles. It never lets up, even to take breath. It just rumbles on and on and on. The sky is one vast film set. No expense spared. Free lights. No one bothering about the bill. June 27: Wake up around 9. Lovely blue Spring sky, fair-weather clouds racing across from left to right. And the air is fresh and cool. This afternoon a lovely little Spring shower. No more than fifteen minutes. But all the kids, and quite a few grownups, are outside and getting soaked. Boys and girls throw mud pies and splash each other. Everyone is having fun. Even the grownups! One woman tells me that in the 1930s she did exactly the same thing: “I can remember I and my sisters used to just rush out when the rains broke. We used to love to get soaked. And our parents actually encouraged us. They said that rains were good for children's health, especially the first rains.” Radhika Bushan - a singer of ghazals positively radiating joy. The rain has stirred her creative juices. “It gives me a lot of pleasure to see the rain. It makes me sing. When it starts raining I start singing. As simple as that. I mean, I feel very thrilled. There is a lot of joy within you!” “What about the smell of the first rains?” Ecstasy, both male and female. “Oh, its exotic smell!...when the rain first falls on the earth it's a very earthy, earthy smell which you just breathe in and it sort of rejuvenates and refreshes you.”...”and then when the monsoon came, first rains, they smell of the mud, the smell of the land. The ground is so intoxicating. Even at the age of five or six I used to get totally intoxicated. I used to become so romantic. Even now, I feel a thrill going through my body when I remember it” More prosaically, “It is basically the smell of very clean water falling on very dry earth. And the scent that comes out is very difficult to describe, because it is not musky like most Indian perfumes are. It is fresh, very fresh, and it has a lovely earthy quality combined with this feeling of green wet grass. I think t is just possibly one of the best things about living in India is that scent” Many years ago, in the market in Lucknow I once bought a tiny bottle of the essence of wet earth. Occasionally, when I feel very nostalgic, I take it down, pull out the glass stopper, breathe in deeply, and then put it back up on the shelf. July 3rd: One storm, two showers. Not bad. But not exactly the Monsoon! Still, everyone seems happier. Even the animals. This afternoon, I saw a peacock dancing in a field near Bhitthur, hopping to the rhythms of some inner music. And everywhere, the farmers are out in full force, ploughing and sowing. On the road to Bhittur we stop the car to talk with Puthan, who’s driving his two oxen up and round an acre field, clucking to them to encourage them to keep a constant rhythm. This isn’t Puthan’s land. He’s a sharecropper who farms other people’s land: he gets half the crop. No comparison with last year, so far! “Last year, when we sowed wheat, there was too much of rain, and we got wiped out because of that. We require rainfall that’s moderate and spread out evenly over a period of time. If there is too heavy showers consecutively, then they do us a lot of damages. And if the monsoon is late, then our output is not as good, and we are not able to earn that much from that output.” “Has it come on time this year?” “This is the perfect time for the monsoon to start.” “Provided it keeps raining on steadily?” 5 “Yes, well, we should expect an excellent crop if the monsoon goes on like this. This is perfect so far, absolutely perfect!” July 10: Yesterday, there was a very brief downpour in Kanpur. I hardly notices it. But apparently it really screwed up parts of the city, according to the local paper: “A nagging drizzle, interspersed by light to moderate showers, totally disrupted normal life in the city on Wednesday. Attendance was below normal in many government offices and banks. Most people remained indoors. Though the changed weather conditions lowered temperatures and brought some relief to the citizens from the summer heat, Kanpurites now have to contend with waterlogged streets, overflowing drains and filthy water flowing into their houses through the water pipes. Overflowing drains compounded the citizens's woes, and revealed the hollowness of the Nagar Nigam's claims about desilting of drains. Sources in the Nagar Nigam told The Pioneer that the much-touted desilting drive launched in the beginning of this month has come a cropper with the sweepers engaged for the purpose abandoning the work after a few days itself due to non-payment of their daily wages. The problems caused by the light showers and drizzle gave ample clues that worse would follow once the monsoon sets in, in all its fury.” Best place to check is Sarvodya Nagar: Getting to Sarvodhyanagar should take fifteen minutes. It was only a few inches of rain. And that was yesterday. But the main road is now a succession of muddy lakes. Why is it that Indian streets always seem to be planned without any idea of camber? So that any water collects in the middle and can't run off? The broken-bricked earth between the one room shacks in the slum is wet but no more than that. Leela is up and about. She’s had the baby the previous week “Hello, Leela. So how bad is it? Just one night's rain, and it's like this!” “Yesterday was horrible. The rain was very bad. And as we told you last time, this is just what we were afraid would happen. We were waiting for the wall to come down. And it did yesterday” I have more prosaic questions: “Where exactly does this water - it does go somewhere because it is flowing - where does it go?” “Yesterday, we dug a channel and it was flowing out on the road. Last year we'd built some toilets and we put in a sewer line: somebody had opened a hole into the sewer line for the water to drain into. But now that sewer line is jammed because of all the dirt from the road. We have to have somewhere for the water to go, after all! So we dug it yesterday night. Otherwise, the water would come into the house.” July 12: Sarvodya Nagar: two young men - Christopher and Dabu - are flying kites. Christopher says work was cancelled for the day. That’s why he’s flying kites. Dabu is a bit more forthcoming: “And you also are off work today?” “I assemble bus bodies. I went to work today, and I was told that it's been raining quite heavily so you won't be required. So I am free and I'm helping my friend fly kites “When the bus factory, construction factory doesn't ask you to come to work, presumably you don't get paid? Right?” “Yes, when I am not able to work in the factory I am not paid. And I have lost out on today's wages.” “How many days, on the average, do you think you lose?” “About two, to two and a half months we are not able to work. You mean the factory just shuts down?” “Yes, the factory is shut down!” It gets waterlogged. There’s water all over the shop floor. The factories are not able to function anymore.” “So the rains that the poets think are the best of times, for you are the worst of times.” “Yes, definitely it's the worst of all the seasons. Causes us a lot of trouble.” July 16th: It hasn't rained now for ten days. Back to how it was in mid-June. As humid as it's hot: the sky an unhealthy milk-white. Everybody needs some rain to brighten the mood. This morning, I met a very old music teacher called Krishna Chandra Shukla. Everybody calls him Guruji. I asked Guruji about Ra'ag Megh Malhar, For many, Megh Malhar is synonymous with the Monsoon. Shukla really is old, very old. He has a rich crackled voice and laughs often. A nice man to tell me about the past. Shukla says Raag Megh Malhar has magic properties: “It is a miraculous Raag and it can even cause rain and thunder.” I didn’t really believe this. “It can even cause rain and thunder? Raag Malhar?” 6 “Yes!” “Have you ever managed to cause it to rain?” “Well, there have been instances when I've been doing a program sitting in a room and singing. And it started to pour after some time.” “Is there a particular word that you should sing that will create that magic?” “It's the notes and the music that have the power to sort of make it rain.” On cue he starts singing for a minute or two. Stops, turns to me with a grin: “You'll start thinking that I sang and it started to rain. You'll think it's my miracle. But, no, I'll think it's God miracle, and I attribute it to God.” “Well, it probably won't rain. In which case your magic powers will not have been tested” Prophetic words? I ask him whether monsoons have changed over the decades: “Oh! There is a lot of difference. It's like day and night. And there really isn't any rain these days. There would be a little bit of shower here and there, a little bit of drizzling. But you just can't compare the two. That rain was absolutely different. The rains are much weaker now. The intensity has decreased. The quantity has decreased and the rains just don't stay. All the forests have been cut down, in all the places nearby. And the rains just come and they go away. They just don't stay. And it just can't be compared. Earlier on, the rains were much more intense and more voluminous.” “Do you think this is because there's been deforestation?” “Yes, it is because of deforestation. Earlier on, there were lush green forests. And the monsoons would stay and the earth would absorb more water and retain it. And the crop would be wonderful. But now things have changed” And then, we all hear raindrops on the skylights. Not much. But definitely raindrops. Doesn't last more than a minute. And by the time I get outside, there isn't a trace of a cloud in the sky! Krishna Chandra Shukla is still sitting cross-legged on the carpet as if he has been expecting those raindrops. I ask: “So? A miracle?”. He laughs: “It is indeed a miracle. All these miracles are because of the Ragas. Each Raag is based on a miracle. And this is the season for Raag Malhar. So it has rained! July 17th: The imagery of the monsoon in Indian culture is blatant, erotic and fun. Just look at any Indian miniature. Subashni Ali agrees: “You will see very voluptuous paintings associated with the monsoon, in which these ladies are sort of lying about with their legs apart, kind of, to put it in a very crude fashion. sensual, inviting positions. I think this is a very ingrained thing after all, rain has got to be the greatest symbol of fertility because it's the whole thing of re-fertilizing the soil and bringing in the new harvest, bringing forth new life, and all that.” Even the reserved Santosh Mahrendrajit Singh, who is still a beautiful woman at over seventy, admits my obsession has some basis in fact. “when it's hot people are cooped up in their huts or their homes. But when the monsoon breaks, then everybody is free to go out into the fields. And with that freedom comes a freedom in which men and women are mingling. I think the poets know best about that.” Khushwant Singh used to say that: “all literature, music, everything is the monsoon. All the folk songs are monsoon. All the lovemaking is monsoon.” When it rains there is indeed an erotic charge in the air. My friend Shahid Siddqi in Delhi felt it when he was a teenager. He still feels it! “In my childhood, there was a famous song called "Barsaat ki raat", that is the Night of the Monsoon, and it had a famous song -"Zindagi bhar nah bhulegi ye barsaat ki raat ek anjaan hasinba se mulaquaat ki raat.” And one very specific memory: “I never forget this night of the monsoon, when I met a strange woman." when I met my wife, that is my girlfriend, and I was eighteen and she was seventeen, then we used to search in monsoon. We used to search for nooks and corners, because India is a land full of so many people everywhere (that) you can't have privacy. But when you have monsoons, these very heavy rains, you can hide behind a tree. Nobody is coming, nobody is going to disturb you. And you can have a good time and that's what gives it so much of romance. I would like to sit with her, you know, recite some poetry, have a drink or two, and ultimately make love to her.” Some of the old Sanskrit poems are just as explicit, perhaps more: “Thundercloud, I think you're very naughty! You know quite well I'm going to meet my lover. So why do you want to scare me with your thunder? And now, you're trying to caress me, to seduce me with your rain-hands!” Or this one that my colleague Radhika Sarin up in Dehra Dun loves to sing: “Sakhi ri boond achanak laagi, A single drop of rain suddenly fell on my cheek. Sovat hooti Madan mud maati, ghun garjyo tub jaagi, I'd fallen asleep after we'd made love. Daadur, Mor, Papayaa bole, Koyal shabd soohaagi, That drop, and the clouds thundering, woke me. 7 Kumbhandaas Laal Girdhar son jaay mili badbhaagi. I want to make love - again July 20: I flew to Mumbai yesterday, from Lucknow. Almost the biggest mistake I ever made! Both ways we flew through the monsoon. Or rather at it. At black cliffs of cloud, high and thick as the eye could see. The 737 simply bounced off them. Then staggered. The right engine was hit by lightning. I swear I saw flames. For a few seconds. We started to plunge. I felt sad and angry I never had a chance to say Goodbye to my wife. And then - it seemed like two minutes. It probably was much less, the pilot got control again, we leveled off and suddenly we were flying in peaceful blue sky, Racing along so fast that a two hour flight reached Mumbai in just an hour and fifteen minutes July 23: This morning, I reread Poems from the Sanskrit. Bitter-sweet, and wonderful. About Viyog, or separation. About men longing for women, and then about women longing for men, especially during the Rainy Season. “At night, the rain came. And the thunder deep rolled in the distance. And he could not sleep, but tossed and turned with long and frequent sighs. And as he listened, tears came to his eyes..and thinking of his young wife left alone, he sobbed and wept aloud until the dawn.” Mirabai is a famous 16th century mystic. The lover in her most highly charged poems is really a synonym for God. But once again it’s the monsoon that provides the excuse. Notice the references to the various animals of the Rainy Season - frogs, koels, peacocks - and the “low, black clouds.” Or this poem by Mirabai: “Without you Krishna I simply cannot sleep. I'm lonely. I just can't sleep. The flames of love are driving me wild. Without the light of your love My house is dark. These lamps do not please me. Without you here, frankly, my bed is uninviting. I pass the nights awake. Oh, when are you going to come back? The frogs are croaking. I can hear the peacock cry And the koyl sing. Low black clouds gather. Lightning flashes. God, I'm scared! My eyes are full with tears. Help me, Krishna! My body's been bitten By the snake of "absence", There's nothing left for me! Which one of you Will go and find my Hari and bring him back to me? Oh, my lord, when will you come To meet your Mira?” Some of the poems are about Savyog or re-union, about the happiness of lovers who are lucky enough to be together, during the Rainy Season. Shahid Siddiqi in Delhi gets proverbially misty-eyed at the thoughts of love: “Rain is--Barsaat is my memory. Memory of my first love. Memory of my childhood. When I'm dying, I'm on my deathbed I remember one thing: that is Barsaat. And I remember the first tears which dropped from the eyes of my mother on my cheeks, when the first dewdrops from the lips of my beloved touch me, when I myself turn into drops of life and entered the body of my beloved..I remember Barsaat. ...when I come to the fag end of my life and I want to live just in memories, beautiful and good memories, I remember, the only memories I can live with, survive with, and which gives me, which act as the nectar of life are the memories of Barsaat.” But does this highly charged imagery really have much to do with the reality of the Rainy Season today? Am I applying a Western preoccupation with sex to an alien (Indian) context? Some in Kanpur probably think so, but I didn’t write those poems, evoke that imagery. I think the Monsoon is above all a female season, where Indian woman can dare to think forbidden thoughts, secret desires. Like Holi, they’re indulged by society, as long as it rests at the level of imagery. And it may well be an upper class indulgence. For most people, the romance probably lasts a day or two, and then it becomes pretty monotonous. Maybe in ancient times, when people lived in forests and there were no large cities it might have been conducive to a little romance. But today, when most people live in cities like Kanpur or Mumbai it's a job just somehow getting out of your house and getting to the office across a flooded road!” 8 August 1st: On and off weather this past fortnight. First ten days - very spotty and very humid. Then last week it's rained steadily and heavily. I went towards Bhitthur this morning, to visit Puthan the sharecropper, to see how he's making out. Puthan is a bit less happy than when we’d met a month before: “Well, there's been plentiful rainfall since I met you last. Well, if we compare ourselves to the rest of the farmers in Bhitthur we've certainly been at a loss because our farms are predominantly at a lower level. So the water logging is more intense here. And as a result of which our crop hasn't been so good. I mean the other farms have produced better crops.” I wondered if one could have too much of a good thing? In other words, too much rain? Puthan agreed this could indeed be a problem. “In that case, I mean, if we concentrate on just one crop we might end up losing everything. So we have to distribute our output in various things. For example, the cucumber and the lobia, that we were in the process of sowing when we met you last, has, neither of them have grown. They've just vanished. And we've had a loss on that score. So we can't afford to put all our eggs in one basket.” That evening I’m invited by a family to a picnic in Bhitthur. It’s pitch black. No electricity. Chhunar takes us out in his boat. It’s cool and silent and the sky’s pitch black because there’s no moon, no stars because it’s cloudy. When we come down river again, back to Bhitthur, Chhunar goes out into midstream and lets the boat just go along with the flow. Very breezy and very pleasant. The river stretches far into the distance, like a mirror in the dark landscape. Magical! August 19th: It's been raining on and off for more than ten days. This morning, at 8 AM, we go to the Ghats in Bhitthur to watch the children from Chhunar's village celebrate Nagpanchami. But the real action is down at the edge of the Ganga. Which is now in flood. The lowest ghats are now under four feet of muddy Ganga. The dhobi wallah is still bashing the guts out of a pile of dirty laundry. Above me, boys crawl along the limbs of a peepul tree and then dive into the Ganga. To great howls of encouragement from their mates. While Chhunar starts to sound positively middle-aged: “Nowadays, it's not the same thing at all. Earlier, people used to be very fond of all these festivals. And they would come in groups singing and having a good time. But now, you hardly see anyone at the ghats. People are now not so clean in their hearts.” In Kanpur today it's also Gudia, when boys fly their kites. But there's no sign of a kite here in Bhitthur. I ask Chhunar why? “On Nagpanchami day, at least in our village, we don't have much kites. In town, yes they do. And on Sunday, because it's a holiday, people come from the town and fly kites. But we don't, not really.” What they do do here is something politically incorrect and definitely gender insensitive. For Gudia, all the small girls come with little cloth dolls, play with them for a little while and throw them in the Ganga. Then the boys fish them out and thrash them with neem branches. Unfortunately, Chhunar doesn't seem to know why the boys beat the living daylights out of girl dolls. His friend Ramesh says Krishna had gone to worship the chief Snake on Nagpanchami. And he brought home some female snakes. But everyone at home was scared stiff and said these female snakes would bite them. So the snakes were beaten until they slunk away into the Ganga. And Ramesh says you don't see so many snakes after Nagpanchami . They're all in hiding and licking their wounds. August 25th: Had a picnic Sunday evening in Bhitthur. This is what respectable Kanpur families do in the month of Savan. We’re deep into the month of Savan. Many consider Savan the heart of the Rainy Season, the true monsoon month. I leant to make pakories. - you take slices of onion or potato with green mirchi or chilli, stuff them into a loose gram batter and then dip the mix into boiling hot oil. They puff up in ten seconds and that's how you eat them - piping hot, straight off the stove. Pakories are part and parcel of the rituals and customs associated with Savan. For example, young brides, in the first year of marriage, are sent back for the month to their parent's house - which may not be much of a sacrifice. But married Hindu wives eat stale food or basi khanna, while their men get hot fresh food. And the wives fast on Mondays for their husbands, or their sons, or their fathers. While the men just go on eating. In Bhitthur, another pandit told me that Brahmins are not supposed to cut their hair or their fingernails during Savan. Or have sex for the entire month ! Out of respect for Shiva! The paper today has an article reprinted from The Times of India about conditions in Kanpur during the monsoon, from....1915. It could have been written yesterday. “The damage caused in the Bazars by the floods here has been very heavy, and at present it is difficult to estimate its extent.. Kanpur received in forty eight hours about half its average annual rainfall..A few people have been killed and many have been injured. Houses have collapsed all over the city and much livestock has been destroyed. For a short time during the storm telephone lines were disrupted, but service was later renewed. Several of the mills have suffered serious damage to walls. The 9 jail has also been considerably affected. But fortunately, the exterior wall was not breached.” . September 8th: Finally manage to find a way through the floods to the railway slum dwellers in Sarvodhya Nagar. The place is a disaster. Walls, rooms, entire houses have collapsed because of the rains. The first person I see is Leela, preoccupied by something much more immediate: “A relative's son’s committed suicide. He ate some poison and I went to the autopsy. And I've just come back. In my house, the smaller room has just caved in. And I don't think even you are going to help. You are just come here and you go off. That's about it! ....the last week it rained everyday. And all the time everybody was wet. We don't have that many changes of clothing. All our clothes are wet. We have to sit down in wet clothes, and that results in fever, vomiting, headaches. My daughter still has fever. She is standing here but she is running a temperature. And my son and another daughter are lying at home. They have fever.” Sushila pops her head round the door to ask us to come and look at her house. “Look at this house. Full of water! The whole house drips with water. It gets drowned in water. And just this one small girl, the parents go to work and she, poor thing, she just bails out water the whole day. Everybody has to wade through all this muck. And we have asked for a drain to be made here. Our people say that they have asked for it, and they have permission. But nothing happens. My mother in law lives in this house. And it's fallen down. The roof came down and we put plastic and everything. But when it rains it falls down again and we have to....When it rains nobody gets to sleep at night. The houses are full of water. This old lady here, she has nobody. She is alone and she is ill at this moment, and there is nobody to look after her. Nobody to see whether she has had a proper meal or not. The house drips. Neighbors try to help. But how much can they do? Contrast that with a diary entry for this same day from a friend who lives in Civil Lines: “It was truly more like a monsoon day - monsoon morning - it was more like what you see in pictures, with very dark clouds and lots of greenery in contrast to them. And beautiful light, where grass looks extremely, fluorescent green. And lovely breeze. Went for a walk, and on the way back it started drizzling a little bit, at around 6.15 in the morning. And just as you came back home it really came down. So we couldn't resist sitting in our living room with all the doors open, even though some of the rain came into the house, and just watched it pour over the garden, over the huge peepul tree, which was swaying in the breeze. And it was simply exactly what we had been waiting for. And it rained quite a bit that morning.” September 15th: Re-read Kalidas's Meghadutta. The greatest poem ever written in praise of a cloud, Period! The English translation is pretty wooden. So I spend the afternoon making my own potted version, with apologies to Khalidas. “A little local god neglected his job. So as penance, his Boss - the God of Gods - ordered him to be separated from his wife for a whole year. And there he pined away. Until, one auspicious day, what did he see but a cloud in the shape of an elephant emerging over the crest of the hill where he was doing his pining. Now the sight of rain clouds makes even the happiest heart long to hold in one's arms the lover who is far, far away. And our little Yaksha was particularly anxious to let his Beloved know she was in his thoughts. So, he gathered fresh blossoms of wild jasmine, and offered them to the cloud. "Giver of Rain! You alone can help the lovelorn. Please take a message to my Beloved in the north. Wherever you pass, women separated from their husbands, feel a bit better. Because they know that no husband who really loves his wife would leave her alone when you appear. Your thunder is the sweetest of sounds to human ears. And it brings hope to the earth and to the animals. Now, let me tell you how and where to find my Beloved. And some of the many things you'll find on your way that will let you know you're on the right road. Peasant women will drink you in with their eyes, moist with happiness because they know their harvest depends on you. Antelope will guide your path as you pass overhead, shedding fresh rain drops on them. Now, I know you're going to try and go as fast as possible, for my sake. 10 But there are going to be a lot of distractions: The scent of fresh wild jasmine on mountain tops will do a number on you. Peacocks, overjoyed to see you, will call out to you. But don't stop! You'll come to the city of Vidisa, and to the Vetravatti river.. I envy you! Your booming thunder will roll along the banks of the river, quickening her heart, causing goose bumps on her skin. You and the river will taste each other's lips. What you do next is your affair. You're both adults. Anyway, after that, take a rest on Nicai hill, then set out again please. Sprinkle the jasmine buds in the woods with some of your freshest little rain drops. Use your shadow to caress the bare shoulders of young girls out collecting flowers. Oh, and please make a detour and go to Ujjayini. The women there are famous for their beauty. Flirt with them. Excite, fright them with your lightning. Enjoy them and let they enjoy you, my friend. If you didn't give in to their attractions you couldn't really say you'd lived, now, could you, my friend? The dawn breeze there is scented with the fragrance of lotus blossoms. You'd be amazed how it refreshes the weary limbs of women utterly exhausted by the previous night's passions. That breeze is very, very skilled in foreplay. Look how it re-awakens desire in the beloved in the most subtle and suggestive of ways; caressing a lock of hair; tightening clothe over breast to awaken fresh desires; making sport with a summer dress to reveal a shapely leg or unblemished thigh.. Your rain drops will also rejuvenate the tinkling ankles of temple dancers. And your lightning can help young women who set out in the black of night to meet their lovers. But please, no thunder and no rain! They're so nervous you'll ruin their night if you show off! Some women will remove their clothes for you, and bathe in your pools. If you can't resist and they won't let you go, then scare them with some of your thunder! But eventually, you will find my wife, slim-wasted, with deep-navel, and the tremulous eyes of a startled doe, moving languidly, her body bowed a little by the weight of her gorgeous breasts. Her eyes will be swollen from weeping. Her face will be hidden by her tresses, like the moon is made miserable when you cast your shadow over it. She will see you and ask if you remember me. Shed some gentle tears upon her, cool her with your soft breeze and give her your message: "O unwidowed lady! I am your husband's dear friend. A rain cloud come to tender you his message that I have kept close to my heart all this long journey. For it is my lot to bring good tidings to all those who are separated at this time from their lovers, and to speed them safely home, so that they can be reunited" And when you've delivered this love note, then wander wherever you decide, give joy and happiness wherever you shed your gentle rains. And may you never be separated from the lightning for even an instant." 11 I can’t end better than that. 12