The good old monsoon showers

The setting in of monsoon for the past few years is marked by copious rains lashing incessantly across the country, causing more suffering to people and wreaking havoc to crops and houses, while devastating floods and landslides are calamities that are witnessed in many states. During monsoon rains terrible fear overrides joy in the hearts of people due to the trail of immense.

This is in sharp contrast to the monsoon rains in the 1960s when I was a school-going child. They were beautiful and pleasant and regarded as a benevolent boon of nature. In our childhood, we would look forward to the arrival of monsoon as it would bring rains and we loved to have rains after the scorching summer. We welcomed monsoon showers and indulged in sports. Fun and frolic merriment. When monsoon would arrive, riding the clusters of dark rumbling clouds, pearly drops of rain pouring down, drumming on roof-tops of houses with unique music, we all felt like rain was beckoning us to be out in the open, feeling its cool, soothing touch from nature. Our eyes lit up with joy and our little hearts bouncing in excitement, we sprang into the pouring rain, not caring about getting wet and with no fear of catching a cold.

Strolling, running, playing in rainwater, and screaming in joy we used to sing rain songs Stretching out our hands to the falling rain, catching shiny raindrops in our cupped hands, keeping raindrops on our tongues, we would taste the nectar of raindrops and sometimes, we would keep sprinkling rainwater over one another playfully. Getting wet in falling rain made us feel like having a celestial bath, a gift from nature.

After rain stopped pouring, we would run into the puddles, keep jumping, laughing aloud, splashing the water from puddles muddying our clothes with our mothers waiting at our homes to give us a full dressing-down. Then, taking sticks into our hands, we would make canals from the large puddles and tear sheets of paper from our old notebooks, we would make paper boats and leave them in the canals of rainwater. Guiding and navigating the paper boats with our small sticks, we had immense joy and excitement, watching our boats sailing smoothly in rainwater canals.

Sometimes, when we were caught in pouring rain on our way back home from school, we would not be drenched in rain as we had umbrellas, holding which we would play by twirling our umbrellas and scattering the rainwater on them. At times even while it rained, the Sun was still there in the sky. At such times, there arose the rainbow arching all over the firmament, sparkling marvellously and capturing our little hearts. We all hollered in ecstasy, 'Oh! Rainbow". We felt like meeting our old, colourful chum, greeting us from the sky.

When the monsoon arrives now, my childhood memories of the beautiful monsoon and our varied sports come flooding into my mind, bringing me nostalgic joy. To the present generation of children, unknown are the varied merriments we as children indulged in during monsoon.

Dr Venugopala Rao Kaki

Poet and short-story writer, Kakinada