THE MONSOON ...

...has stuck its nose around the door and the steam rises.  Not the salubrious sauna advocated by health clubs and beauticians but a sticky film on the skin kind of steaminess.  There is heaviness – a burdened anticipation - in the air, punctuated by occasional gusts of wind and bursts of rain. One is in a quandary: leave the windows open, or keep them shut? The clothes seem dry, but are they? Lights are on the in daytime, but they cast a hazy beam compared to the nighttime radiance one is accustomed to. 

It’s strange that what should be a welcome seasonal change casts gloom and damp!  Where is the freshness of the first rainfall? That rich, moist, invigorating smell of newly dampened earth? That desire to lean far out of the window and feel the fresh breeze on one’s face? The lift of the heart under the twirl of the umbrella? The orchestra of sound and light played against the backdrop of a midnight sky?

The monsoon has come and before it can settle in, we are looking to bid it ‘farewell’!! Could it be that, like all of nature, we too have an inbuilt antenna trained towards impending doom? Or is it the shaming message thrown at us by a savagely indignant Neptune? The tons of garbage tossed back at us and dumped on the shoreline by the recent tidal waves; the rising temperature and the fragmented pattern of rainfall are the cries of a ravaged earth and sea. Even the importunate köel sounded more distraught this year!

 

Imagination?  Warning bell? Or, death knell?