Rain, rain, come again
By: K S S Pillai
The rainy season is a much-awaited one in all parts of the world as the economy of a country largely depends on it. The delay in its arrival by even a few days would make people worried.
Our country is so vast that there is a great difference in its arrival period in different parts. When the Meteorological department is busy issuing alerts of various colours in some parts of the country, and the administration is busy warning fishermen not to go to the sea and declaring holidays for educational institutions due to heavy rains, other parts are staring at water shortage, heat waves and the diseases caused by them, and a famine-like situation.
The rainy seasons are unique in my state of Kerala. Though a small one, it is blessed with two rainy seasons – one from June to August and the other from mid-October to early December — and forty-four rivers.
The schools in Kerala would reopen after the summer vacation around the beginning of June, which would coincide with the arrival of heavy rains. Most children would carry banana leaves to protect them from rain, but they would be drenched when they reached their schools.
My home was near the holy river Pamba which had no dams and very few bridges. The water was so pure in the absence of factories on its banks and the absence of the use of chemicals in agriculture that people used to drink it directly without suffering from any disease. Buses and other vehicles would use the ferry service to cross the rivers, taking a long time to reach even the nearest city.
When there were no rains, the river was shallow and placid. Those who did not want to wade through the river would cross it in the few country boats always present, paying a small amount as fare. As hardly any house had bathrooms, all used to bathe in the river.
Men and school-going children would bathe in the mornings and evenings, and women would bathe and wash the clothes of the entire family in the afternoons. They also used those occasions for gossiping. Most people knew swimming as they were surrounded by rivers, canals, and ponds.
The river was connected with another one a few miles to the south by a canal. It had only puddles of water with fish and weeds during the non-rainy seasons. Men who lived nearby would defecate on the canal bank and clean themselves in the puddles of water.
There would be paddy fields on both sides of the canal, where people would tether their cows for grazing after harvesting. Children would collect the dung of these cows in bamboo baskets to use as fertilizers.
During the rainy seasons, the canal would overflow, its water entering the paddy fields. The weeds would then be carried away by the flowing water, and the canal would regain its majestic form. One incident that I remember often is the near drowning of my elder brother and me on the verge of the paddy field once. We had entered the water thinking it would be shallow. Somehow, we escaped and swore never to repeat the mistake.
The rainy seasons were the favourites of the fishermen living on the opposite side of the river, who would spread their nets in the fast-flowing muddy waters and get a good catch. They would cross the river and come to our village for hot glasses of tea or toddy. Most people staying on the bank of the river also would have to cast nests to catch fish during floods.
As children, we liked to play in the streams of water that flowed from the plots behind our house. We would make paper boats with black ants as passengers and play till it started to rain again from the dark clouds, accompanied by lightning and thunder.
Though the rainy seasons brought many problems, the children always prayed, “Rain, rain, come again.”
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to ‘The Kashmir Vision’, his short stories and articles have appeared in several national and international publications)
