Tango and tandav of the rains
Nature’s most beguiling spell is upon us, packed with more spice and action than any number of veeres and Bhaveshes, and it promises delirious times in the wilds of the Mumbai Safari — and expectedly dreadful ones in our built-up realm.
All the promises made by politicians and babudom now face their greatest challenge. But then the monsoon has for some years now become, and will forever remain, a mix of pleasure and pandemonium, melody and malady, tango and tandav.
The monsoon could very well be India’s chief economist, finance minister and agriculture minister combined. Add to this part stock market regulator.
This giant, saturated breeze is the great challenge to the art of weather forecasting, the butt of many a joke. Until not very long ago, it was the norm to indulge in just the opposite of what was forecast. Conditions have improved and forecasts have become far more accurate, yet the monsoon remains as whimsical as ever. No amount of technology, neither supercomputers nor satellites, seem to be any match for nature-logic.
Meanwhile, the cuckoos, peafowl, warblers and waterhens sing and strut their signs about the rains. Early this week, to add to last week’s pitta, I caught sight of a Jacobin cuckoo barely escape marauding crows behind my Lokhandwala home. A colleague reported sighting an Oriental dwarf kingfisher in the national park. Just perfect.
Interestingly, beyond these featherfolk frolics is an armoury of signs and scents that are precursors to the rain. For the cluedin naturalist, there are the creative skies, winds, frothy sea.
Swirling, swaying thunderheads of clouds over the past few days aren’t just providing temporary soothing relief from heat but are part of that virtual game of hide-and-seek between cloud and sun, each trying to outdo the other until the clouds and their stormy breeze reign supreme.
Rising humidity and that premonsoon scent bring out the red silk cotton bugs, those brightly coloured and rather flat insects, and gregarious plant-feeders, and they waste no time in getting down to procreating.
A few toads, and a lone frog, have awakened from slumber, a far cry from childhood days when the entire verdant landscape of northwest Mumbai was crowded with these amphibians. Surprisingly, amid the bone-dry leaf litter around a waterhole in the forests of the national park, a lone hill turmeric flower in bloom presented a dramatic contrast and I wondered, how sensitive are nature’s secretive ways.
Along a forest edge, the night is rich with fireflies, as if the twinkling stars had descended to the earth. Signs of the coming rain have stirred these insects, prompting their mating dance.
Here’s raising a toast to the rains. May they arrive on schedule, and be kinder to the city than we deserve.
(Sunjoy Monga is a naturalist, photographer and author of numerous books on biodiversity)