THE RAINY SEASON

THE RAINY SEASON

Outline:-

1.      The feeling of relief when the rains end the heat.

2.      The activity of cultivators: everything growing.

3.      Effect on animals, insects; on the mind.

4.      Is a period when certain diseases abound.

We all know the feeling that the hot weather has lasted too long. It seems that we cannot endure any more of the pitiless sun, and, when the first cool breeze begins towards the end of June, we know that the rains are not far off. The monsoon rain is a fairly regular arrival, but if the first showers are postponed by a week or a fortnight, that is bound to be a period of disappointment and deferred hopes.

With the first fall of rain, the cultivators become busy. Up and down the fields they go behind their faithful bullocks, guiding their old fashioned ploughs and breaking up the earth to receive the fresh air and water, it is wonderful how quickly the green grass begin to clothe the ground again. Last week the ground was bare and brown, with the lean cattle searching in vain for nourishment. It looked as if no life could be left there. Yet here are the green shoots already, springing up to dress the earth once more in its fair, green carpet. Other things, flowers and vegetables, spring up with a rapidity that is amazing to one who has been accustomed to the slower growth under the milder sun.

Animal life, too, is revived and stimulated. From the river bed, from the neighboring pools, comes the song of the frogs. At night it sounds as if a number of people were knocking stones together, and they keep it up without intermission. “Chak, chak chak,” was the ever such a monotonous song? But there are many ways of expressing joy. The snakes and lizards, too, which have been lying asleep throughout the summer, are active and moving about once more. Insect life is on the increase. Flies and mosquitoes love the rainy season, and that is why dysentery and fevers are more common at this time of the year. The heat of the summer is a great preventive of disease.

On the whole, while the rainy season is good and necessary for the processes of Nature, it is not stimulating and refreshing in equal proportion to man. The dull skies and incessant rain are depressing, and we have not such a feeling of energy and strength as in the spring. But it seems to be a law of Nature that we are never quite satisfied.