Monsoon

Monsoon! The word has innumerable associations for me. It conjures up the smell of first drops of rain on the parched earth. It is associated with dark clouds, gusts of cool breeze, flashes of lightening and the roll of thunder. It reminds me of floating paper boats in the water logged streets and of wading through knee deep water on the way back from school. Memories apart, Monsoons are the life blood of our country. Everything, starting from ground water level to water level in reservoirs to industrial production and even the sentiment on Dalal Street is directly or indirectly impacted by the monsoon. So where are the rains this year? I read in the papers that rainfall is adequate in Southern, Central and Western parts of the country. Good for them. But what have the poor North Indians done to displease the rain Gods? All are looking expectantly at the sky everyday. And believe me, it is not only the farmers who are doing it. Everyone I meet nowadays from the Doctor to the Milkman is wishing for rains. The clouds did make an appearance a few times but went away without doing anything like in the movie Lagaan. So for the sake of everyone, let us all hope and pray for the rains. Let it rain so that the farmers can get on with their job; let it rain so all the water reservoirs fill up to the brim; let it rain so all of us get relief from the sweltering heat; let it rain so children may wade through knee deep water on the way back from school or better still get an unexpected holiday on account of a rainy day. Let it rain so that I take my bike and go for a long drive in the pouring rain; let it rain so that I catch up with ‘Singing in the Rain’ on my DVD late in the night; let it rain so that the family can sit together enjoying Kichri and Garam pakoras. So, all my friends please join me in beseeching ‘Indra Dev’ to have some mercy on us and bless our parched land with the bounty of rains.