Let The English Nut introduce you to the romance, the poetry, the history, the geography and the science of THE MONSOONS! Episode #73
Monsoon: A word for rain from the deserts of Arabia.
The hero and the heroine dancing in the rain is a Bollywood staple. It’s considered romantic and, well, steamy. Perhaps such scenes are inspired by the monsoons which are so deeply etched in India’s psyche.
The monsoons are said to have started between five and 50 million years ago after the Indian subcontinent collided with Asia, resulting in the upliftment of the Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas.
Monsoon rains occur because of the temperature difference between the surface of the ocean and that of the land. In summer, the land is much hotter, heating the air above it and creating a low-pressure zone, drawing in moisture-laden winds from the sea which end up showering the land with rain. The Tibetan plateau and the Himalayas act as a high-level heat source as well as a barrier – both of which ensure copious rainfall over the Indian subcontinent from these Monsoon winds.
The word monsoon was first used in India during British rule. It referred to the seasonal rain-bearing winds blowing in from the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea. The word was derived from the Arabic word mawsim which means season. It entered English via Portuguese, Dutch or Malay.
‘Monsoons’ refer to the winds, the rain they bring and the season in which they occur. On the Indian subcontinent there are two monsoon seasons – the south west monsoon in the summer and the north east monsoon in the winter. While the wind blows from sea to land in summer, it blows from land to sea in winter.
Monsoons are not just linked to Bollywood, but to every aspect of Indian life. Be it agriculture or the water supplies to our cities, India is dependent on a ‘good monsoon’. Its importance has been reflected in the arts and literature from ancient times. Kautilya’s Arthshastra, a book on statecraft, ethics, economics and more, written between the third century BC and second century AD, describes the scientific measurement of rainfall.
Poet Kalidasa wrote the lyric love poem Meghaduta (Cloud Messenger) in the seventh century. In it, a lover exiled atop a mountain sends a message to his beloved through a cloud. The poem traces the actual path of monsoon clouds. According to legend, when the Hindustani classical raga Malhar is sung well, it has the power to induce rainfall. Tansen, the legendary court musician of Emperor Akbar, was said to have the gift of producing rain this way.
In ancient Tamil Sangam literature, we find a poet whose name Cempulappeyanirar translates as Red Earth and Pouring Rain. The custom was for a poet to identify himself by a significant phrase from his work and this poet chose a line which evokes the petrichor of the first monsoon showers hitting the parched red soil of a long-forgotten Tamil summer. I began this video with a reference to Bollywood romance. Let me end it by quoting from a love poem of this Sangam poet:
How did you and I ever meet?
Yet in love
our hearts have mingled
as red earth and pouring rain.
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