Celebrate the monsoon

Tag : bearing parts






clouds gather: Soon brown, barren landscapes turn into a riot of colours.
This is the month of June and the time for one of the mostimportant annual events in the calendar of the Indian subcontinent.The winds of the South West Monsoons have started their journey,sweeping across a parched and thirsting landscape bringing withthem water, hope and life. If there is one single thing that hasdefined the subcontinent since historical, even mythological times,it is this monsoon. It’s there in everything about the peoplehere — in the songs and the music, in their poetry andliterature, in the paintings of the masters, in the stories andfolk tales of communities across, in expressions of love andlonging and even cinema of every language and style. It is thebedrock of its food security, of the very survival of the land andits people.
This monsoon is one and yet it is many at the same time.
When it hits the western coast of India, generally in the firstweek of June, the summer is just about tightening its grip on largeparts of western and northern India. It could be pouring in thethickly forested mountains of the Western Ghats and we might haveparallel reports of a heat wave and related deaths from otherparts. By the time the pied crested cuckoo’s arrival heraldsthe coming of rain-bearing clouds to the scorching Gangetic plains,there is a good chance that the Brahmaputra is already in spate,flooding large parts of the North East and bringing death anddestruction in its wake. Annual event

The monsoon has a character with many facets. It remains an eventthat is waited for when it’s not there, loved and enjoyedwhen it makes its appearance and even feared when it sets in andthen refuses to relent. It’s varied and complex and revealsits processes and trajectories with difficulty, if it does at all.The rainforests depend on it to be rainforests, rivers depend on itto be rivers and its behaviour and idiosyncrasies decide the fateof a billion people and more.
In a season of rising inflation, rising oil and grain prices, andrising food and water scarcity it seems like a humbling moment (atleast it should be) when the all powerful ministers and technocratspoint to the met office’s prediction of a normal rainfall topromise the nation that things will be better soon. It is to regaina moment of sanity to realise that it is the most basic things thatwe take for granted the most; that the GDP and all itsparaphernalia is after all, a child of something so fundamentalthat there is no option but to acknowledge it; that without rains,without water and food for its people dreams of being a superpowerwill remain dreams and no more.
Summer this year appears to have been relatively better than othersin the recent past, but even then, large parts of the subcontinent,be it the region of Bundelkhand in Madhya Pradesh, the tribaltracts of eastern India, the coasts of Andhra or the forests ofUttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh — these have all, in thelast few weeks, experienced severe stress and acute watershortages. The Gujjars are agitating (and dying) in hot and dustyRajasthan to meet their political goals; families don’t wantto marry their daughters into Bundelkhand because of the severewater shortage; women from many villages in Andhra Pradesh’sSrikakulam district are forced to walk many kilometres daily to geta pot of water; fires are raging across forests in the Shivaliks;and elephants and other wild animals in Orissa moving out offorests in search of water are falling prey to the poachers…the summer of 2008 has had its share of conflicts and depressingstories. There will be many more and one could go on. Is there a way?

In times such as these there appears to be little that one can do.Except, of course, hope that time passes quickly and the rainsoblige. Water is too basic a need and therefore, becomes toopowerful an emotional issue. This is an emotion that, we all know,is exploited all the time for all kinds of political, financial andpersonal agendas.
The agendas are met, the genuine needs of water, often, are not.Proof of this reality is not really needed, but if it was, whatwould be a better example than the grandiose scheme of riverlinking that dangles like a sword upon the people and the landscapeof this country. Few have an idea of what the impact will be onagriculture, hydrology, the people and the ecology. It is doubtful,though, that these will ever be considered.
For the moment, however, we will let it be. For the moment,we’ll make a departure. As life pours down in large parts ofthe country, the conflicts, the fear, and the anger can be hidbehind misty curtains. The rains are here. The multiple hues of thebrown, barren landscapes are turning into multiple rejuvenations.The green is beginning to sprout, there is a freshness in the airand in it all, the promise of life. This is the season thatcelebrates life, and so be it!
And grandmas’ advice to carry the umbrella the day the metoffice says the skies will be clear is best heeded and respected.Science and technology has not yet taken us there.