MONSOON MUSINGS - 5

When I started writing on monsoon, I wanted to write about monsoon in the Himalayan Mountains also. Living under the foothills of Himalayas, near Dehradun for the last four years, I have learnt that one can expect incessant rains and a few cloudbursts practically every year .

Couple of years back, in June 2013 to be precise, the heavy rains for two days combined with a lake burst in higher up Himalayas north of Kedarnath, caused devastation in the area and many lives were lost and properties damaged. This year also during the monsoon, there are many landslides, many road blocks and stranded vehicles and passengers, who are either on a sight-seeing trip or on a pilgrimage.

One word they almost always use while talking about the monsoon in Himalayas is the ‘vagaries’ of it.

There is another side to monsoons around here.

I live in a primary school campus, which turns absolutely green and beautiful during monsoons. Fortunately for us, rains do not create much of a havoc around this area. In fact, even now it is raining here. We get away with a few potholes on the roads and some fallen retaining walls. And of course, there are small landslides which the villagers take in their stride.

Generally every year we get to see the hailstorms here. The sight of small white lumps of ice falling and lying there on the green lawn in front of the house is so pretty.

Many of the school children walk down or walk up from nearby villages, some of them 5-6 kilometers, in colourful raincoats. They do remind me of my own childhood, when I had to walk 6-7 kilometers to the school, but here they have the added burden to climb up the hills one way. Still they brave the rains and do come every day.

It is when one goes to the city, one is struck with usual city problems caused by the rains, like water-logged roads, traffic jams, auto rickshaws and taxis making merry etc. Yet, compared to Mumbai and Delhi, these problems are much less here, I suppose.

Many of the vows are related to uncontrolled constructions happening on the mountains, where the natural waterways for the rainwater to go down to the rivers get blocked. And construction on the riverbanks would weaken the soil  and at some point disaster would strike.