A Dive into Seasons : Monsoon Diaries

When she arrives, the smell of raw earth streams into my olfactory senses. Whenever  that enticing aroma fills my room, I push back my chair and leap out to catch the wonderful sight of sky. She would have conquered the sky and fenced it with her robes. The robes she wears fluttering all around the sky, even denying sun to peek into the land. She dove into the land awakening the soul within. The soul of the land revelled itself in the return of its soulmate. She ran unclothed snaking across bushes, trees, roads and soil. Small streamlets and our fields brimmed with water.

!! Welcome to monsoon Kerala !!

Every year monsoon arrived in the midst of our vacation. May end. Thanks to KVS (Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan), whenever I got holidays my friends in our place went to schools and vice versa. Change of seasons also changed the game we played. The flooded fields won’t allow ball to bounce , hence eroding our cricket pitch. Thus it was the time of football. Slipping and skimming through the clayey ground, the lungi as well as shorts clad footballers thronged for possession of the ball. Rain was never a hindrance rather a reason to play football. Continuous rain cleaned posters of Bob Marley and Che Guevara near our ground. As the lower lands flooded , ponds sprouted across here and there.

Well actually on one of such lower land , now stands India’s largest shopping mall Lulu Shopping Centre. There stand the inroads of capitalism into this perennial socialist land. But just half a dozen year ago, it was a cricket ground. The entire city used to brim with water. Towards the end of June, the school reopened and the monsoon clad schooldays began. Mornings began half drenched under an umbrella waiting for school bus. While entering the bus, water droplets sprinkled on us as umbrellas got folded. School van was the broadcasting center of school level gossips. For me it was the source  of school level gossips especially of silent relationships between girls and boys. Naughty times were intertwined with chilly monsoon weather. There used to be verbal arguments which snowballed into personal fights and even enmity ( we are still talking about 2^nd and 3^rd standard students). Well might was right then. 

Monsoon in teens were no more personal. They were of gangs. They were of the friends who later became part of me.  I still remember myself as someone who always failed to swim, I jumped into a canal brimming with water and incessant rain and came out swimming to my friends. The dive into the water and opening my eye, I saw what I had never,the wonderful river bottom and, for the first time, saw light yards away. Rains had wet and painted our hangout place (a concrete semiwall under a huge tree near school bus stop) in algae green. Wet and slippery, yet  did many sat on it with mobiles in hand and watching p***.  After playing football in the rain, we used to run for buses, especially remember my friend chasing the bus with bag in one hand and shoes in another. One day our principal caught my friends playing volleyball in hard rain, that too after class hours. Well she created a ruckus for this.A million such rains went by each with its own reason. They say rain wont leave marks that , they purify the land and never leaves scars. But it did leave  footprint, i call it, not on rocks, land or lakes, but on our memories. It garnishes the beautiful life by making it more chilly, musical and lively. 

 It was rain. Even peeping into our classrooms and hustling , calling us to join her. Playing football with us and following us on our adventure into brimming canals, rocky hillsides and even while watching , well you know what. Savoring the romance she had with this green civilization, she roam wild in the plains and hills. She kisses the land unflinchingly and untwining their souls, she cries out in the dark and deep oceans on their separation. And  awaits six more months to visit god’s own country and to relive her romance.