It is traditional wisdom, they say, that it rains a little during the Navaratri that lead to the Dasara festival. In a way, if we look at it scientifically and objectively, beyond the emotionally charged convention, a spell of rains around this time is but normal because by this time, the monsoon would almost be beating the retreat.
This year, however, the monsoon refuses to 'quit India' with a tenacity that would make any colonial master proud of its consistency! Even after the festival, it is raining rather heavily.
Most everyone is now real bored with and tired of this season, actually a source literally of the re-emergence of life after a harsh summer. Now the daily routine of the humid claustrophobia of afternoons giving way to late afternoon or evening rain lashings is so typical that even the Russia-Ukraine melodrama on the world stage for the last six, or is it seven, months appears less lengthy!
Sure this monsoon marooning has absolutely exposed the urban infrastructure, or rather the lack of it. Much worse, however, are the troubles of the agriculture sector. Despite being a city person, i can completely identify with the woes of the farming community, beyond the fears of a frenetic future food scarcity. Let me explain why-n-how.
In my backyard, i always plant veggies around this time, keep it neat and nice as ever. This year, however, the constant rains do not even allow proper pruning and weeding as the unrestrained wild shrubs and plants grow back literally in a day. If this is the case of my small little backyard, what must be the despair of a farm repeatedly inundated with wasteful rains?
"Rain, rain, come again/on the planes of Spain", the childhood rhyme, it seems, needs now to be re-written as "rain, rain, go away/in cricket crazy India, we are tired of your power play"!
Pratima@ Excess always leads to distress!
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