chasing the monsoon…..

Posted in my blog 'open doors ' on July 6th, 2006 which is now defunct.....

Its heavily raining in Kerala…its monsoon…..when rain gods bless with abundant showers , this wonderful strip of land which by any standards , is the beautiful best in the world…so green ,so lush , so serene , so vivid and varied in landscape, hills and rivers, seas and plains ……it seems GOD created this land as his dwelling… there by giving it the name ” God’s own country”…..
Alexander Frater wrote ….
The first sounds I ever heard were those of falling rain. It was tropical, the kind that seems to possess a metallic weight and mass…
He got mesmerised by the monsoon which slowly advanced into the body of India from the southern tip -Kanyakumari, spreading into the geopolitical terrain of Kerala, which anxiously waits for the showers to sweep left and right, after three gruelling months of summer….people jump in joy..they run out to their “nadumuttams” in their traditional dwellings…more modern ones, the city living animals,enjoy rains through their windows of their cramped flats or in the roar of the rain which peeps in through the artificial cielings of their multi storied offices.
The Government as usual, is apathic, year after year, reacting to rains as if it is a new phenomenon, like the ‘tsunami’ about which, they have never before heard of, about the ferocity of which they hadnt ever seen of….so come rains, power goes down, cables go off… floods ,bulding collapse, deaths, diorrhea, dysentry…disease, relief camps…tall claims and promises, the ‘help’ from the centre which helps the rulers and politicians send more of their sons and daughters to switzerland ( to study there and to operate their swiss accounts from there)…
The beauty of the rain ends with the first couple of days.. then it is misery, total melancholy….men are left to defend for themselves…poor creatures….To quote Frater “There is romance in the season but there is a reverse side as well — floods, death and deprivation. People in Bangladesh suffer terribly. Because of deforestation, the rainwater hits the plateau very badly. In India I feel sorry for pavement dwellers. How they conquer the monsoon is an annual miracle. Even on a day when it is pouring and hutments flooded, I have seen little school children come with perfectly starched, spotless white school uniforms. It is extraordinary.”
Most of my fellow Malayalis would not have heard of this man…his love for rain taking him all the way to India, to travel north from the southern most tip, with the advancing monsoon, and later gifting us with the best book on the monsoon…Can we blame them for not having heard Alexander frater and his romance with the rain…
I see it every day..the hard life that the long long monsoon brings in…i dont want the rain to vanish… i dont want..i just want it to stop taking away poor me and my fellow beings in the deluge….instead let them take away the politician, the IAS IPS and other rulers..despots..bigots.. and make it a cleaner place…
A real Gods on country….