Main Ek Baadal Awaara..

(This is second part of the two part blog wherein I have tried to capture, through words and images, my fascination & passion for the season of rains - specially in parts of Western Ghat. The full article has been published in Terrascape's June 2013 issue).

The clouds gather over the sky – the storm matched the rains. Lightning and thunder wouldn’t  stop. I am writing in candlelight with the window partially open. But within me there is great joy – in the force of the storm, in the shadow of the clouds, in the sound of the thunder, a deep wave rises in my heart. I feel like doing something – at least think of an impossible imaginary event.

This was Tagore, in one of his letters, written obviously on one of the rainy days. As I woke up today morning, the mood outside my window was similar, and hence an impossible imaginary is what I would love to indulge in – becoming a yayawar raincloud straight out of Wordsworth’s poem, wandering with the breeze, travelling to the nooks and corners – nay, peaks & valleys of the mesmerizing Western Ghats.

For a traffic-harried Mumbaikar, looking for a quick recharge, around Mumbai itself, there are numerous opportunities to enjoy the season; 

It could be taking a therapeutic and soul-cleansing shower under the numerous waterfalls that dot the landscape around Mumbai by mid-Monsoon season;

 

Or trekking to any of the innumerable peaks around where journeying through a green carpet is as enjoyable as exhilarating it is to reach the top of the peak - making one really experience what the phrase 'joie-de-vivre' really means.



Of course, the top of these treks, also provide a panoramic view of the natural beauty around - giving one the understanding of the magical transformation that raindrops - the harbinger of life, unravels on the earth.

 

My preferred destination, though, if I were really a cloud, and could travel at the speed of the thought, around Mumbai would be the undulating land-mass around Wada & Vikramgadh and see the rain creating an outpour of streams that gush through the field, dry & dusty just a few days ago, but now with the balmy weather, creating a perfect place for lounging as nothingness all around just envelops you. I have not heard the sound of raindrops falling as distinctly anywhere else.

With the wind changing its direction, this cloud could drift towards Konkan, remembering Uran which, before its demise, was a place with juxtapositions; a perfect setting for the monsoon to showcase its charm:  a village resembling an extended family of a metropolis; being closer to JNPT port leading to loads of heavy traffic, including goods trains. Yet, just crossing the railway tracks could unravel the vast open tracts so serene that it percolated deep down in you. 



Rains would make this landscape absolutely right for an artist to indulge in her art – painting, composing music, photography, dancing, nothing would have looked out of place here. A few showers could bring Uran alive every monsoon till a couple of years ago, man’s hunger for constant growth & development slowly led to its life ebbing away - forever now.

The Monsoon is no time however to be melancholic; rather it is the season to rejoice & engage in fun & frolic, the way nature does. This is the time when the paddy fields colour the earth in all possible shades of green, the reddishness of the earth more pronounced, ponds reflect the clouded sky, while the clouds reflect the Sun-rays through a rainbow, all adding to the reverie that Monsoon engulfs you in. 



A perfect morning after a good overnight pouring of rains unveils a scape which is difficult for me to describe. So, let me paraphrase Dickens:

Heaven above was blue, speckled with cotton white clouds, and earth beneath was green; the water in the lake glistened like a path of diamonds in the sun; the black-winged stilts poured forth their chatter across the ponds; occasional flocks of birds soared high above the reeds; their clamour filling the air.

While this imaginary cloud travels to southmost part of India, the continuing shower outside take me back to Gibran’s  Song of rain:

I am dotted silver threads dropped from heaven
By the gods. Nature then takes me, to adorn
Her fields and valleys.
I am beautiful pearls, plucked from the
Crown of Ishtar by the daughter of Dawn
To embellish the gardens.

Heaven is where the rain drops from, to the parched earth, and heavenly it is in God’s own country – Kerala. I see no exaggeration in the tagline that promotes tourism in Kerala, and how can I, one who loves rain so much.

Kerala receives rain from the advancing monsoon, from the retreating one too, and also in between. For that matter, the rain clouds are the visitor almost all through the year. Now this is the kind of pouring that keeps the state clean & temperature cooler than what it would have been – lying so close to equator. It also feeds generously the eco-system comprising of perennial waterfalls, rivers, backwaters and highlands of Western ghats, all sloping down towards Arabian sea to its west, beckoning bewitchingly to the tourists. 

It is difficult to decide a perfect pastime for a rainy day in Kerala, as the choices are many: Just driving through the clouds in the hills;  lounging the day away into a hammock on a beach or taking a safari through Periyar river, enjoying its wildlife;
 


Seeking out Frog-mouths & Malabar Trogons in elephants infested forest of Thattekkad;




Waking up to the soothing singing sounds of Malabar Whistling Thrush with clouds perched atop my balcony;



Strolling with an umbrella and plucking leaves for the next pot of tea from a tea-garden, or the lazybone that I am, just retiring into the valleys to understand what Gulzar meant when he wrote – waadi men goonjti hui khamoshiyan sunen.

Of course, when it is the season of rain, I find plenty of choices of destinations - most of them yet to be explored by me. I do look forward to the journeys to those, hoping to  experience another facet of the country in the monsoon. The desire is to travel and wake up yet another morning in yet another place listening to the distant thunders & raindrops falling on the roof, bringing alive once again the Song of Rain:

I am the sigh of the sea;
The laughter of the field;
The tears of heaven.
So with love -
Sighs from the deep sea of affection;
Laughter from the colorful field of the spirit;
Tears from the endless heaven of memories.