Romancing the Rain

Few sights must be as beautiful and stirring as the monsoons in India.

When rains come to the Indian subcontinent it is a time of unabashed euphoria, a clebration of nature, a celebration of life itself. For a people that date back their civilization many thousands of years, rain has been the bounty of nature that has sustained man and earth down the ages. Few cultures would see the many odes to rain, the festivities that surround it, the prayers that preceed it.

The farmer, the hot dusty earth, the parched animals, the expectant fields, the powers-that-be all turn heavenwards to invoke the rain-god. As the summer temperatures scorch the land and heat waves lash across, the one topic that becomes a national obsession is 'when will the monsoons come?'. From newspapers to television to Parliament to the man on the road, it's the one hope that keeps everyone going.

And then the rain comes - glorious in all its splendour. Lashing across the countryside, painting browns green in its wake, moistening the parched soil, sending up waves of earthy aroma, it's a sight to behold, no, to experience.All across the country you see the joy of a rendezvous met; at tiny thatched tea stalls on the wayside, the man pours steaming hot tea from metal kettles into glass tumblers for people who huddle under the thatch; children come out and dance in sheer abandon, soaking the wetness into their very being; people hurry home under raincoats and umbrellas and as lights come on, the rain drops become an elusive film that glimmers and shimmers as they catch the light.

Rain in the mountains - steep, wet, winding roads bordered by looming trees and hills; rain on the coastline - water merges with water and the ocean roars its approval; rain in the plains - rivers surge and little paper boats make their way through in tiny brooks; drops in the desert - hennaed hands, swings on trees, riot of colours and peacocks dancing. In India, rain is a leveller - rich and poor, blue and white collars, children and aged, all share the same space, the same joie de vivre.

And yet, rain often devastates. The fury of floods is feared as much as drought; the homeless have as much to protect from heat as from rain; old trees and young crops shudder alike; crumbly buildings and shifty municipal works face the brunt.... and yet, what we hanker for is this essence of life.Is it because we are primarily an agricultural economy? Is it because the stock market, the food prices, the commodities are all ruled by rain? Yes, sure, but it goes beyond that. It is the revival of the spirit, a spiritual awakening to the softest of emotions within us, a caress that connects us to the river valley civilizations that were our beginning, a reminder that heavens still bestow the nectar of life.

Few experiences must be as beautiful as this.