The magic and dread of the monsoon

HAVING grown up in the 1970s in the north Indian town of Dharamsala, one of the rainiest places in the country at the time, I came to love the monsoon. The dark greyish clouds with their weird shapes hanging precariously over Himalayan peaks, ready to shed their load of water on the valley below, fascinated me. My grandmother’s tales about mysterious monsters living in huge castles inside those clouds added to the mystique, though they were also meant to coax me into finishing my homework.

My childhood abode was a beautiful old house built of mud and clay bricks, covered by a high roof made of locally mined slates. The rhythmical pattering of raindrops on the rocky roof produced soothing music. With the constant drizzle lasting for days and no access to television in our hill town, I snuggled into bed to read wondrous fairy tales set in faraway lands or gripping mysteries by Enid Blyton. I could hear water gushing with roaring fury in the mighty streams, which have now sadly been reduced to narrow channels due to incessant construction work and encroachments.

The monsoon coincided with the ripening of locally grown varieties of mangoes in my native village, about 60 km away. The family members would gather around huge buckets full of mangoes, feasting on the delicious fruit and exchanging humorous tales about relatives and friends. The Internet and mobile phones were still decades away; so, communication meant sitting face-to-face.

There was also a practical reason for my love of the rains. An overnight downpour sometimes washed away one of the several bridges on the way to school, resulting in holidays until it was repaired. This gave me time to stomp around with friends in puddles and float paper boats, a thrill immortalised by singer Jagjit Singh in his song Kaagaz ki kashti. Our mothers, however, were horrified upon seeing our soiled uniform, calling us ‘bloodsucking little devils’ for making their lives miserable.

Driving a car or travelling by bus during the monsoon on narrow winding hill roads built by the British half a century previously was a joyful experience. Watching small waterfalls flowing down hillsides, hearing the feverish chirping of house sparrows and robins and occasionally seeing a rainbow were highlights of a road trip. Hillsides were covered with vegetation, and with roots firmly gripping the soil, there were no landslides even in torrential rain.

However, the monsoon now poses unprecedented challenges. It pours down so heavily that cars, bridges, houses and, sometimes, entire hillsides get washed away. No place seems safe from nature’s wrath. Perhaps, people should consider living high up in the mountains in caves with modern plumbing to escape unpredictable cloudbursts that lead to mudslides and flooding. The monsoon no longer holds much charm; it has become a cause for dread.