The monsoon so long missed here has returned

Barsha Ritu (monsoon) has arrived at its capricious best this year. There were hardly any rains in this second season on the Bangla calendar in decades. Even a modern Yaksha pronounced as Jaksha would find it almost impossible to stop a passing cloud on the lonely mountain peak where he was exiled by King Kuber and persuade it to send a message to his beloved in the Himalayan city Alaka. It is because clouds were no longer the same as before which change their colours and float leisurely or run amok depending on the task they have to perform.

Fortunately for the pining Yakshas of today, they do not have to rely on clouds to send their messages. It is on the finger tip provided that one has access to a cell phone and the loved one on the other side is within the network. Let alone the romantic yearning which certainly has a strong link to rains falling incessantly and preventing people from going out of home unless they have some emergencies, rains in the monsoon have their unpredictability unlike at any other time. It is here the beauty and uniqueness of precipitation of the season lies.

Dark clouds envelop the south-western sky without notice and move north darkening all around and first the soft pitter patter of the rain on roofs, leaves announces the arrival of heavy shower. Soon the downpour may overwhelm the surrounding as it continues for hours together. Even a brief spell can prove too much for cities in Bangladesh where the drainage system cannot cope with onrush of rain waters and the roads go under knee-deep water with the ground floor of many old buildings also falling victim to inundation by the swelling surge.

Villages are certainly better off in this respect as the homesteads are usually a raised platform higher than the surrounding areas of vegetable gardens or crop fields. So villagers do not have to bother about accumulated rain water on their lawns. After the sweltering summer heat, the rains come to rural people as a heavenly blessing. They may not have the discerning eyes of Promotho Chowdhury who can appreciate rains' myriad forms and capricious changes that give precipitation its ethereal beauty, but they welcome the heavenly gift with open arms.

Chowdury's observation that the rains at times falls so lightly and thinly as if human eyes would miss them but they do not. Somehow the tiniest drops are visible to the naked eyes and it appears like a spider web that spreads downwards from the sky. No artist can create the illusion this thin mist is shaped by wide strokes of a giant brush by an invisible painter. It is at such moments, rainbows may appear against the sky adding something unearthly to the scene.

Yes, monsoon was missing so long from this land. It seems it has returned this time, reassuring that not all is lost. Its return means there is still hope for the mankind to connect with Nature and the environment. Following one after another dry monsoon in this part of the world, this wettest monsoon is sure to serve as a harbinger of resurrection of the parched soil that was hungry for water. The month of Ashad is yet to be over, although it is nearing its end. What Shrabon, the second month of the season, has in store for the people here is not known. Let it be as generous as it was in the past in offering its rainy gifts.

Many people feel bothered about sudden and untimely rains unaware that in the monsoon there is no such thing as schedules for rains. It may start falling anytime and the Bangalees have coped with such unannounced and frequent arrivals of splashes of rains for generations. True, people who have to do manual labour in the open suffer if there is continuous rainfall, particularly when they are to perform what they are used to doing. But this does not mean one has to curse the rain because it is the agent of regeneration.

Unless rains cause floods, those should be welcomed and celebrated. One does not have to posses the poetic gift of Rabindranath to appreciate the all-round benefits of rains. Rainlessness is a dire prospect the Bangalees must try to avoid by any cost. Villages in Bangladesh have turned much greener today thanks to increasing plantation of trees. This is a sure way of welcoming rains. Not only rains but also a condition is thus created to host the myriad species of birds that once left the denuded spaces. Overall, there is a need for feeling the affinity with the spirit of Nature and thus discovering man's place in the larger scheme of things. The rain is an essential component of that grand scheme.