June Arriving;welcome Monsoon!

When I think of Geography classes in the school and the study of monsoon, the same confusion will arise again -if it is South West or North West and invariably I have committed mistakes on many an occasion.


Every year during the first week of June,the Southwest Monsoon hits the Southern tip of the Kerala Coast lashes the entire State with heavy downpour. Two days down the line the monsoon comes unobtrusively and very softly, like a mother’s caress to the people sitting on the other side of the Western Ghats in the border district of Tamil Nadu.


Just to welcome and enjoy the season myself and my husband,the retired goons visited Tenkasi and other places at the appropriate time.

I was sitting in an arm chair in the veranda of the hotel and the hissing sound of the drizzle which occasionally increased in its intensity as a mild shower was mesmerizing. I was having a book to suit the occasion, “Chasing the Monsoon” by renowned American travelogue writer Alexander Frater. His fascinating narrative reveals the exotic, often startling, discoveries of an ambitious and irresistibly romantic adventurer.

Chasing the Monsoon is sure to be a new experience for most of the readers.Its about a phenomena which haven't been heard by most.The narration by Frater is never dull for a moment.As he starts from London in quest of his desire he has determined to live broadcast the readers of his experience,such is his narrative skill.Especially his interactions with the meteorological department hooks up the readers with many interesting and important informations.

The introductory moments in Kerala is sure to make one to set out for a trip there by the start of next monsoon.
Eighties Goa is really picturesque while reading

Finally Meghalaya steals the show with its beautiful unadulterated landscapes of the eighties.A must read book about India's greatest Monsoon.
The Southwest Monsoon is associated with our school re-opening, and children were accustomed to walk the Kilo Meter and half distance to school in the light drizzle and alternating heavy showers with gale blowing as if attempting to uproot any thing on its furious path.
In those days it was least in the minds of parents to provide their children with a rain coat or an umbrella leave alone the affordability of such luxuries for a lower middle class family. Foot wears were unheard of during those days.

Children never considered it a discomfort to get wet on the way to school. There were always chances of the wet school uniform getting dried by the time they reached school in the weak sun breaking out from the clouds from time to time. After all many were used to wearing half dried cloth through out the day thanks to their hand to mouth life style. The only valuable possession to be saved from the rain was their second hand text books procured from senior students at discount counters, wrapped in plastic. The lunch box invariably was a long brass vessel with a hand hook safely hung over in a jute string over their shoulders.
Some of the adventurous seniors considered it below their dignity to carry their lunch box, and during the one hour break for lunch, they would run home, to devour on the same cold rice that was carried in the lunch box.

See now, how many varieties of break fast and lunch packs children are blessed with!

Walk to school itself was an event full one. The roads were lined with towering tress and en-route they had to cross the river in spate and two vast lakes brimming to capacity, and waves crashing against the main road.
The week ends were another pleasant story altogether. The five Kms. walk to the Courtallam Main falls could not be expressed in words. They have to be all alert all the time to save the lunch from the monkeys hanging from the trees; Children were soaked in gingili oil( Reminded of Agatha's long and short hair) which the elixir cascading from a height of 200 feet would wash the very moment you merge one with the water

. The slippery mountain path leading to Pongu maa kadal ,though had claimed many a lives, was a thrill in itself. It was a rare combination of lurking fear, nervousness and pure bliss and ecstasy.
It is very sad that South West Monsoon does not shower its grace on the dry Tamilnadu.We have to wait till Oct-Nov for the monsoon to retreat.
When we observe the satellite picture of the sub-continent during the mid July, when the monsoon has reached its zenith, the country is found to be engulfed in streams of black cloud, except two dry spots.
We can appreciate that the Monsoon, having witnessed the Thar Desert, swallowing the mythical and holy river Saraswati would certainly shun the dry and barren Aravalli Range with apprehension. But why and how it should shun Tamil Nadu is shrouded in mystery.
We talk of umbrellas, drying of clothes in monsoon.But how the author enjoys!
“There is a change in the colour, smell and look of the sea. There is turbulence and the water turns choppy. We can see the rain advance from the hill. For days before the onset of the Monsoon, heavy dark cumulonimbus clouds gather on the horizon. They can stretch up to 14 km to the troposphere,”
I rather would not torture our friends, with Alexander Frett’s long journey tracking the Southwest Monsoon, commencing from Thailand and Madagascar. But it is interesting read when we find a man, a foreigner at that struggles and wait, catching-up and at times spends sleepless nights when there has been delay in its journey in the sub-continent.
But he had to wage a war with the Administration to reach the boundaries of Sohra, in Meghalaya, the wettest place in the world, known best by its British name Chirapungi.
His struggle and trouble some journey lasting about two months was worth, every penny, when he experienced beauty and ecstasy in the valley of the Khasi Hills swathed with pregnant rain clouds, bursting, a labour of pain carried long through the plains of Bangladesh. It is cloud burst one after another that sub-merges the hills and valley with more than 12000 mms of rain.
It is another interesting factor that both Southwest Monsoon and winter monsoon other wise known as Northeast Monsoon merge as a single season. in Chirapungi.


The Khasi Hills is totally bald thanks to the deluge of a rain which washed away even the sub-soil.
It is also an irony of nature that the Southwest Monsoon skirts away from Tamil Nadu,

unloads all its bounties in a fury ,makes Tamilnadu suffer from water scarcity.

The Southwest Monsoon traces its way back to Kerala in September and withdraws into the Arabian Sea.
As if remembering to make recompense Tamil Nadu, which it had left it literally, high and dry, on its way to enrich the whole of the Country, returns back through Bay of Bengal as winter Monsoon, to quench the thirst of the Tamil population to some extent.


We cannot chase the monsoon;but at least we can chase the author.



Jayasala 42

 

Dear Suryakala,
Thank you very much for the feed back.Even in June it is hot summer in Tamilnadu,especially in Chennai.However the onset of monsoon gives us a ray of hope that we may get rains in NOV and water problems may be reduced.

Jayasala 42

 

Thank you Kamalji for the nice response.

Jayasala 42

 

Dear Ishita,
I am not from Kerala and I belong t o Chennai.Just to enjoy the onset of monsoon we visited Kerala.
jayasala 42