Monsoon is here. The gushing wind tickles the trees, and they sway with perfection in an attempt to escape the fierce yet gentle brush of the wind. The grey clouds gather around the bright morning sun as if to guard it against the boisterous little drops which will soon arrive to quench the thirst of the barren land. And when they arrive, they are like tiny pearls that go and fall on the dry and hungry land and form a pretty necklace of green and glee. These little pearls also trickle against our glass windows.
The slimy, green frogs and the crawly earthworms embrace the little drops of water like a blessing and a gift from the sky. The atmosphere is dark, but each drop brings with it a fragment of hope. This essentially summarises what monsoon is in a poetic sense. But this isn’t what an Indian monsoon is all about.
Monsoon for us is a time for our cherished ‘rain dance’, and not just getting our old umbrellas out. We get inspired by our iconic Bollywood songs, like “Chak dhoom-dhoom” or “Ek ladki bheegi-bhaagi si”, each of these songs and every filmstar is remembered at times like these. We love to jump into the dirty puddles as they splash happiness on our faces. The little paper boats float in almost every little ‘stream’ which forms in monsoons.
An Indian monsoon is incomplete without a plate of pakodas. The crunchy little pakodas are like a blessing in the rainy season. Onion, paneer, mirchi, aloo, bread, and every item available at home is dipped in the pale yellow besan and fried to perfection in loads of tel (oil) and love. Maggie is another saathi for the monsoon.
Sitting with a bowl of piping hot Maggie and a cup of chai or coffee, looking out of the window at the lovely raindrops, sounds like the perfect monsoon. Cosying up in bed with your favourite book, or sitting on the couch all day with your favourite videogame or movie feels amazing. An Indian monsoon is unique, and there is perhaps no other country where monsoon is as exciting as it is here. We don’t just have monsoon in India, we have ‘baarish’.
Frankly speaking, India is unique. We don’t just have a cup of tea with two cubes of sugar, but we have ‘cutting chai’. We don’t have a packet of French fries for fast food, we have the pani-puri instead. We aren’t quintessential, but we are ‘laakhon mein ek’. I think it’s time to accept the fact that we don’t need to be like anyone else or any other country, and we just need to be proud of who we are. We need to enjoy ‘Mausam ki baarish’, not the swampy monsoon season.