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India's monsoon: a time of washouts and waiting. After every summer, southern Asia and especially India, is drenched by the rain that comes from moist air
masses that move in from the Indian Ocean to the south. These rains, and the air masses that bring them, are known as monsoons. The Arabic word for
season, “mawsin”, is the origin of the word monsoon due to their annual appearance.
Like winter in the northern climes, the rainy season is welcomed after the excesses of the hotter days. But like winter, the rainy season "hangs on too long",
to borrow Faulkner's words.
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Cabin fever sets in a soddenness of the spirit. Papers left lying about begin to curl at their edges and grow limp in one's hands.
Clothes and blankets grow heavy and musty.Alarm clocks fail to stir the sleeping, because the dark clouds are scudding across the horizon, and the sun,
though risen, is nowhere to be seen. Even the heroes of the Ramayana become gloomy and irritable as the season wears on.
But the monsoon is also about cleansing and regeneration. Prior to the rains, the tropical world becomes dry, dusty, brown, dead. Reservoir levels reach their
nadir, a tap coughs and spits out turbid water, fallen leaves crackle underfoot. The sun blazes down upon a parched world.
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When the first raindrops fall, it is almost as if the land and its creatures heave a collective sigh. After the rains come, it is observed that, "Everything is happy
now." - the frogs that appear as if through spontaneous generation, the pheasant-like birds burst out of the canopy, the leaves sprout almost audibly from
the barren branches and even the farmers who had awaited rains in the scorching heat of summer on the fields. The one respite from all this heat is the
monsoon, a June-to-September rainy season that drenches the countryside, replenishes the rivers, and has given centuries worth of poets all their best lines
and imagery. Life in India ebbs and flows with monsoon.
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Working its way south to north, the monsoon is a veritable conveyor belt of moisture that is drawn to the heat of India's vast plains. For weeks, the rains
come. Monsoon is the season to make bold fashion statements. This is a season when fashion takes an altogether new turn that can be termed as romantic
and dreamy. Sometimes it is hard to share in its optimism, especially when the rains combine with Mumbai's nasty air, thus creating a palpable, goopy mist that cakes your
lungs, your skin, and your hair. Monsoon is the time where your skin behaves a little strange and is often unstable; suddenly it gets oily or becomes dry and dehydrated. Hence it is very
necessary that you take care of your skin during this season in order to look fresh and beautiful. |
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Most of a year's worth of rain falls during a few hours each day over the course of a few months, but everything is liked and enjoyed to a limit like if there are
heavy rains, there are floods which bring disaster to the economy as well as to the people who may succumb to leptospirosis, a lethal disease transmitted to
humans through contact between open sores and the contaminated floodwaters.
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However this does not deter people from going out. They have precious little choice. In India, the rains tend to be more catastrophic. Power outages are
frequent and prolonged, and the water is knee-deep, absolutely filthy, filled with floating trash.
Cab drivers pretend that certain roads are impassable in order to justify more circuitous, lucrative routes. The cabbies even have a racket going: they pay
people to clog the drains so that the cabbies could raise their rates! Mumbai’s indispensable commuter trains ground to a halt. Absenteeism at work and
school rockets. Students in the monsoons see that there is an opportunity to play. Infallibly conscious of the greater good, they also make a point of
reminding the schoolmarmish formality that the monsoon provides the water essential to living things.
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The time has arrived to beat the scorching heat of sun by the showers of rain, one just has to step out, to feel the pleasant experience of the Monsoon
showers, forget all the sorrows and enjoy the Magic & Masti of the Monsoon.
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Bosky Shroff
(Journalism Graduate - IMFAA)
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