Chasing the Monsoon: Rain Around the World

City folk normally have very little to do with the rains, forests, irrigation and agriculture. Therefore, I found much to my amusement, that we were tracking the progress of the Monsoons! and especially rains in the region around Pune and Bangalore quite closely. We're trying to green some hills around Pune and a friend is building a golf course near Bangalore. Rains, water harvesting and water as a resource had suddenly become quite critical for our projects. We started tracking the monsoons much like the Sensex or the international oil price!
Monsoons, the most awaited and discussed weather pattern in India (along with summer temperatures) and the nation's lifeline. Come May each year, the mangoes and the discussions about the rains begin. My childhood memories are full of the rains in the Western Ghats area where I grew up and the monsoon waterfalls in the ghats between Pune and Mumbai. More recently, the news about Michael Douglas starting work on Racing the Monsoon (although the movie is reportedly more about a diamond heist on a train), a sequel to the 1984 movie Romancing the Stone, got me thinking about all of my monsoon and rain experiences in India and around the world.

First Day of the monsoons - in Coorg

1st of June, the date cast in stone for most people in India and the Indian Meteorological Department in particular and the ETA of the annual Monsoons. All forecasts (tantamounting to "predictions of the future") of the monsoons are based on this date and the entire nation heaves a sigh of relief when the first showers of the monsoons arrive over coastal Kerala on or around this date. The "progress" of the monsoons is then tracked from this arrival date. One of the most endearing sights etched in my mind is seeing the first monsoon clouds on one side of the hills in Coorg (bordering Kerala). Dark clouds on one side of the hill and the sky pretty much clear on the other side. Imagine, seeing from this hill, dark monsoon clouds over the Kerala land mass and clear skies over the other slope towards Karnataka. This was around, 6 pm on 31st May. No rain on that day. We left for Bangalore the next morning at 6:30 am, and the monsoon rains started at 7:00 am on 1st June!

Monsoons along the West Coast - Konkan

The West Coast of India and the North East Region takes the brunt of the monsoon showers, shielding the rest of the country from a deluge that could have been devastating. For us not living in this part of the country, we probably don't know what monsoons really are. This is how one of our family friends who works at the University of NITIE near Mangalore described the monsoons to us, "Come visit us to see what the monsoons are. The season starts with a fortnight of extreme thunder and lightning in the pre-monsoon period, when power shuts down for most of this time, it rains cats, dogs and elephants for three months followed by thunder, lightning and no-power for another fortnight when the monsoons recede in Sept. Ask us what monsoons are!" Agumbe, a place in the Western Ghats (called Cherapunji of The South and known as the place where the teleserial Malgudi Days was shot) receives an annual rainfall of 7640 mm. i.e. about 25 feet of rain!

Monsoons the life giver

The forests of the North East and the Western Ghats have the highest bio-diversity in the world. A huge number of species are endemic to these parts of India and support an amazing variety of flora and fauna. From a huge variety of algae, ferns, orchids, butterflies to several species of amphibians. The fertile lands of the Indo-Gangetic plain are what they are due to the silt washed down every year and the monsoons that nurse these lands. Most of the water for drinking, irrigation and hydro-electricity is courtesy the rains during the monsoons. Even with just 100 hours of rain in most regions of India, it gives us sufficient water until the next monsoons arrive. Most of the agriculture in India is during the monsoons, and the hills, valleys and forests turn a verdant green teeming with all kinds of life forms. India's GDP takes a dip in the years when there's a bad monsoon with everything from tooth-paste to two wheeler sales taking a hit.

Monsoon Fury

As much as the monsoon rains are a life giver so are they a destroyer of lands, crops and peoples' lives. Ask the people who live along the Brahmaputra in Assam and Bangladesh. Rivers change course every year, sweeping away entire villages when they do and marooning many more where the only way to reach them is by helicopters flying overhead. I spent two days cut off from the world during the July 26th 2005, 1 metre Rain Deluge and the damage caused by the rampaging Mithi river (aka drain). A time when I waded through waist high water, with laptop on my head, my life story flashing through my brains in getting back to my hotel in Bandra, Mumbai. The only thing that worked in these two days in Mumbai was the resilience of the people that saw them help each other and peacefully "tide through" the effects of the deluge.

Rains around the world

Did you know that there is a North American Monsoon (NAM also called the Desert Monsoon)? These monsoons are active in Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and California during July-Sept every year, but don't bring much rain to these deserts. A common discussion with many American colleagues (especially in the early 90s) were their questions about India's monsoons (since they would have seen images of floods in India on the telly the earlier night). A friend of mine, contrasting the deluge of the Indian monsoon, with the rain in California, told them "Compared to the monsoons in India, we could walk "between" the rain here in California".

Rains in UK? No monsoons here, just lots of drizzles all through the year!, was always interesting to see Brits expertly carry their big "brollies" racing through the side-walks of London to catch the next train to a place where it was likely to be raining too! And in Canada, I first discovered their rain when I thought I was lucky to see a snowfall for the first time in my life, only to be told that it was "freezing rain". Rain in Singapore is a daily affair, would begin to pour as I would be ready to take a taxi back to the hotel on my numerous visits there. In Africa, rains seem to be part of the folklore, as our ranger-guide in the Masai Mara explained to us, the great animal migration where 1.5 million animals (mainly widebeest and zebra) during Oct/Nov head for the southern plains from the Northern hills to catch the brief spell of tropical rain!

Singing in the Rain!

Ever noticed the difference between nursery rhymes taught in English medium schools and those in vernacular medium schools? One says "Rain, rain go away......", the other beckons the rain with, "Yere Yere Paawasa" (in Marathi or any other Indian language). Perhaps a sign of the difference between city folk and those closer to the earth in the villages. Lets all wait for Michael Douglas' film, take a walk in the rain, have piping hot cups of masala chai when its pouring outside and read the book Chasing the Monsoons by Alexander Frater. Enjoy!