Rains in Kerala

Anil Kumar.R

In Kerala monsoon starts normally in the beginning of June.The sky looks cloudy all the time and the air filled with moisture. The trees bear dark green foliage. Rain Drops may fall down at any moment.

Once the rain commences it may be an abrupt demonstration of strength and vigor for one or two hours. Sometimes it may pour incessantly for many hours in a slow pitch. However during first summer rains in March, it is always a welcome visitor. The earth reddened with the tropical heat of many months will release its sigh on receiving the first droplets. It will form rivulets and narrow streams flooding muddy patches and washing out the dust off the roads. I still remember one such heavy summer rain in my child hood when there were small chocolate sized ice cubes fallen from skies while I was running home from school in rain.With the onset of Monsoons in June it usually coincides with the opening of school. We remember our younger days when we go on the first days of our academic year drenched in rain.

The continuous torrential downpour often leads to flooding of rivers and low lying lands. The rivers which were dry and looked like roads with pebbles strewn along muddy patches, suddenly change their form and starts overflowing its banks. They used to fill the adjoining paddy fields with tea colored water where we could launch our boats made of plantain stems tied together. Now a days, the paddy fields disappeared and children also have no more time to enjoy those wonders of nature.

The monsoon and floods have been the topic of many interesting literary works and films and also fascinated many story tellers and poets. Thakazhy Sivasankara Pillai ,in his short Story “Vellapokkam “(The flood) narrates one such flood. The story of a lone dog which is not ready to leave his home even after all the surroundings of his home are flooded with water evoke sympathy in the minds of the reader. Ratrimazha(The night rain) is a Poem of the famous poetess Sugathakumari .

Among films,“Vellam” (The Water) by Hariharan is another work which gives a view of incessant rains and flooding. The protagonist risks his life to save the life of his lover of younger days from an old dilapidated building flooded with water. Piravi (The birth) directed by Shaji N.Karun is one of the remarkable movies ever produced in Malayalam in which the emotional ambiance of nature is well amalgamated with human predicaments. The suppressed grief , the longing for the missing son, the unsupported mind, all these have been wonderfully became part of the mood of the rains and nature. Perumazhakkalam(The Heavy rainy season) is another film where the tears and rains get intermixed.

When Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his “One hundred years of Solitude” tells about the incessant rains in Macondo which continued for four years, eleven months and two days and again continuing, we in Kerala can experience it visually as well as with same emotional impact.