monsoon – Don't hold your breath

Monsoon green

Bare woods covered the hillside in the hot season, but with the first rains they began to turn green. Now, in the monsoon, there are days when I can’t use the narrow dirt track through that spill of the woods to reach the gym in the mornings. When it has rained for a day or two, that track becomes muddy. But after a day or two without rains, the water disappears into the ground, and I can take that easy route again. The alternative is twice as long, and it leads through a more leafy road, but it is a bit slippery these days with moss.

Peacock flowers have been in bloom throughout the season. Now many of the older inflorescences have died and turned into the long seed pods which will turn into mulch through September and October. These flowers come in three varieties: some trees have yellow flowers, others have red. But the one I like best have flowers where the centers are red, and the edges of petals turn yellow.

There’s a wall that runs around the hill, and I see that it is quite sturdy. It is studded with drains which allow the water runoff from the hills to flow down without building up behind it. That’s why I always wonder what came sliding downhill to collapse this part of the wall. There are gratings over the mouths of the drains. I used to wonder what they are for. I found out this summer when I walked past the collapsed section and found a family of mongoose squeezing under the sheets and running off between buildings in search of food.

And then there’s this regular who I’ve begun to recognize. I see him sitting on a bench and reading, sometimes a book, sometimes on his phone. When the weather is nice he seems to like this bench which looks out at the woods. When the sun is too strong he moves to shadier spots. On this day he brightened up the road.

Monsoon’s waterfalls

Seasonal streams are common across India when the monsoon arrives. I’ve been on jeeps which crossed dry stream beds in an absolutely arid land. Such streams must be replenished every year by the rains. When these streams form in the Western ghats we see waterfalls. The Family remembers childhood trips to seek out these seasonal waterfalls and has fond memories of getting wet in these cascades. When we see them in passing while zipping along the expressway, she sighs at the changes a lifetime makes.

Quiet days of the monsoon

When we lived by the sea in Mumbai monsoon days could be stormy. The rain would batter windows and the stormy wind would whistle through any little crack it could find. They were days when you did not want to get out of bed. But there were quiet days too when one could sit and read, drink endless cups of hot tea, and admire the constantly changing sea and sky outside the windows. The sea and the clouds were always there for us to enjoy.

Monsoon evenings were often quiet on the streets. People tended to stay at home during July and August. Sometimes The Family and I would take a late evening walk on Marine Drive and find it with very few others out for a stroll. On those quiet evenings you could really enjoy the expanse of Backbay and the curving vista of Marine Drive.

There were many quiet days in the monsoon season of 2020 when the high point of the day would be to look out of the window at beautiful sunsets and envy the crows’ freedom to fly in flocks.

But it was not only the rain which could produce quiet and calm in the bustling city. Late one October evening I was part of this wonderfully calm scene. Standing in the colonnade very late, I could hear the gentle lapping of the sea on the rocks by the shore. There was no moon, and the only light came from the lamps high up on the ceiling of the colonnade. Some program must have finished on the lawns overlooking the sea, and people had cleared up everything and stacked chairs up neatly. This is a memory that comes back to me whenever I encounter the phrase quiet hours.

Emotions recollected in tranquility

Wordsworth explained the process of creating poetry as beginning with the contemplation of emotions by a tranquil mind. In a preface to one of his books of poetry he explained that the composition of a poem can only be achieved by a calm mind, even though the poem has to express deep emotion. One may say the same of photography. How can you compose good images, control the behaviour of a complex machine, without a serene and detached mind? The featured photo is a contemplation of bad weather through the windows of a convention center in Busan in the middle of a November. The weather was blustery and cold, but there was no action visible. I decided to let the horizontal bands of colour speak for themselves.

Another kind of bad weather is the monsoon in August. It is perfectly feasible to walk out into the pouring rain: it is not cold, after all. But an umbrella provides little shelter. Wet clothes and shoes are uncomfortable. So, on a holiday you may prefer to sit indoor in peace and quiet, contemplating the rain. A photo of this state of mind is what I wanted when I composed this image of raindrops on delicate white petals blooming in my balcony.

September, the Indian Summer, is completely different. The humid warmth is uncomfortable, but plants see this as the beginning of autumn. A walk in the garden can be a wonderful sight once you let go of the notion of beauty propagated in glossy magazines. There is a beauty in the drying leaves, in their spotty colours, and in the different insects that put in an appearance when the rains are on their way out. It is not the death of a garden, merely a transition between flowers. There is calmness in contemplating this change.

A similar, but different, creative impulse lies behind the crafting of Japanese sweets. Here is one called Kamome no Tamago (literally, Seagulls’ Eggs) from Iwate prefecture. The out shell of white chocolate hides a thin layer of sponge cake holding within it a mixture of egg yolk and sweet white bean paste. The pounding of surf near a seagull’s nest is what this sweet evokes for me. But it is something that I then enjoy in a calm setting.

Late views over the west lawn

The middle of October is an unpredictable time for sunsets. I normally pass the promenade just before sunset. Some days the clouds cover the sun fully. Monsoon stays longer nowadays than it did twenty years ago. Some days are glorious; there are clouds over the city but not over the sea. On such days a dull day suddenly brightens up around sunset. I find this draws many people out on to the colonnaded terrace facing the sea. The featured photo shows one such day.

The season of sharad yields to hemant my now. Once the clouds go, there are some golden days before the temperature begins to drop. That used to happen at this time already, but the seasons have been pushed back over the years. Now’s not the time to think about that. It is The Family who’s been keeping a daily record of the sunsets by the sea this season, but her preferred hour is a little later. She records the last light. She will have missed these pre-sunset shows. So the task falls to me, and I do it happily.

Houses. Beautiful houses

When we drove through a village which looked particularly full of nice Indo-Portuguese bungalows, we stopped and walked back to look at them. “It’s very colourful, isn’t it?” The Family asked. The bright blue paint and the red and yellow tiles in the yard were non-traditional, although the building itself was built in the usual style. Two women were sitting in the verandah, perhaps mother and daughter. I complimented them on the house and asked for permission to take photos. They were happy, and asked us where we came from. I could see the painted ends of the wooden beams which held up the sloping roof: so much better in the rain than the perpetually leaky roofs that you see in Mumbai. The round pillars supported the main cross beams, and I liked the cheerful design painted on them. After a bit of chit-chat we moved on down the road.

Nowadays I find it strange that everyone in India with the slightest interest in looking at architecture goes on about the Indo-Portuguese houses of Goa without stopping to look at every Indo-Anglian house in the rest of the country. Neither did I remark on the colonial styling of most urban houses elsewhere in India, until I visited Nepal where they keep talking about British-style houses as opposed to the local style. Part of this has to do with how common a style is. The next house that caught my eye was this one on the verge of falling down. It was built in almost the same style as the previous, except that its verandah did not go all the way across the front. The garden was overgrown and the wire that connected it to the nearest electrical pole was sagging dangerously. I could see a lock on the door, and the latch seemed to be pretty rusty.

The next house was again on the other side of the road. It was a wonderful symmetrical bungalow, with five doors opening on to the verandah. There was no railing in front, but there was a porch above the central door. It had simple rooflines, a higher one above the rooms, a lower one above the verandah, and a pediment above the porch. I was sure there were going to be ventilators between the upper and lower roofs. The garden was overgrown, but the house seemed to be in use, and in decent repair. In these parts of Goa, often children move away, and an older generation remains in the ancestral home in the village. Eventually maintaining a large garden becomes hard.

We crossed the road again to look at the next house. Crossing these narrow roads in Goa is no mean feat. Cars and motorbikes come barrelling down the narrow twisty road. There are no zebras of course, and no speed breakers as in the rest of India. You have to keep your eyes and ears open as you nimbly step across the puddles. This was worth it, if for nothing else than the fancy gate in front of it. The garden was being maintained, the yard and the colours of the house were traditional. It was the perfect end to our little walk along the main road of the village.

Beaches in the monsoon

Very little can be done in Goa’s beaches during monsoon. The sea is too rough for a swim, and there’s little chance of the clouds parting to let the sunlight in. Fishermen sit around in the evenings, after they have finished tending to nets and boats. From further inland, village families come here to enjoy the breeze.

The Family enjoys walking on the beach. As I walked with her in Benaulim, I looked around and was struck by how two social species of mammals inhabit the same space without really interacting. There are the humans. Of course that’s the first species I noticed. Then I realized that there are packs of beach dogs too. Groups of dogs and humans move through each other, calling to others of the same species, not paying any attention to each others’ calls.

There is social drama in each group. I wanted to take a photo of a group of dogs sitting relaxed, facing away from the sea, whereas the humans all face the sea. But before I could take a photo, the dogs noticed an interloper and got up to chase him away. Meanwhile a couple had exchanged a baby and a camera from one to another.

There are also beaches which disappear altogether. Here is Palolem: such a draw in the right season. But in monsoon barely a meter of sand remains above the waves. You can’t even walk there. We walked up to the beach and walked back for a coffee.

The monsoon arrives

Summer was a sauna. The sea outside our balcony normally produces a welcome cooling breeze. But for the last three summers it has wafted steam over us. When the monsoon breeze set in: raising breakers than seem to travel from the south towards the sea front, I was expecting rain. But the hot sea stalled the rain for several days. Finally, almost twenty days late, we had the first big rains of the season. I was caught at work and kept telling myself that I would set out home once the rain stopped. That evening it never did, but when I walked out I was treated to a blue hour that I haven’t seen for a while. It will be fun taking photos in this season.

The next morning I saw a familiar but rare insect on the wall outside our flat. The rains had made their magic: flooding the hollows and the cracks where these creatures live. A day later I saw the first common crow (Euploea core) of the season: a butterfly that will become easier to spot through the season. Unseen insects are emerging: I expect to see lines of ants on the wall some time in the future. And more annoyingly, the flies that usually stay outdoors will now begin invading our homes if we leave windows open at the wrong time. And with them the mosquitoes. The annual annoyances.

I didn’t want to leave you with the impression that all the birds have left. Far from it. The sodden ground is a feast-laden table for the house crows. They flee the rain like ungainly wet umbrellas flapping for shelter. But as soon as the shower stops, they are on the lawns, pecking at hapless insects which have to choose between, what for them is definitely, the devil and the deep blue sea.

Cyanotis

Right across the road from the gate of the bungalow which was our home for a couple of days was a bank full of monsoon flowers. The tiny flowers of a Cyanotis caught my eyes immediately. This was a spreading herb, close to the ground, roots sprouting at the nodes. I love these flowers of the genus Cyanotis, all of them the same striking purple blue, all extremely hairy when you look close. This was a flower with three petals, leaves oval shaped and hairy. I tried to take a photo of the hairy stamens bearing bags of pollen. With an extreme close up, I have to really choose which part of the flower I want to focus on. The photo below shows the dense mat of hair. Due to the nature of the stems, the shape of the leaves, and the flowers, it was easy to identify it as the Nilwanti (Cyanotis fasciculata).

I tried to look up more information. Indian sources claim that it is endemic to the Western Ghats. The Kew Gardens web site is less specific; it says the range Eastern Himalayas and Assam, Southern India and Sri Lanka. Has there been a habitat loss? The IUCN red list does not say that it is endangered; in fact it is listed as being of least concern. I’m loath to put down all such discrepancies as being due to climate change. Sometimes discrepancies are just mistakes, so a bit of chasing the literature is called for.

Year 403 in ten pictures

The first photo of 403 ME, the featured photo, is of a female and male black buck at the height of the breeding season. This was taken in February at the Tal Chhapar sanctuary in Rajasthan, not far from Bikaner. Both Bikaner and Tal Chhapar are worth a visit.

The second photo shows a Greater Flamingo at the lake created by the Ujani dam on the Bhima river near the town of Bhigwan in Maharashtra. This is a wonderful place for birds, and March, when we went there is perhaps almost at the end of the season.

We did not travel much in April. This photo was taken in the garden of a bungalow in Lonavala, where we spent a nice relaxed weekend with friends.

In May we visited Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand. In the Dhikala range we had a tremendous number of tiger sightings: perhaps the maximum number of sightings that I’ve ever had in a three day period. Sometimes luck is with you.

In July we travelled through Ladakh. This photo is of the dance at the Hemis monastery which is always held at this time. You will have to go to one of my posts with a video to listen to the music which accompanies this ritual dance.

We had heavy monsoon rains in August. That is perfect for the farmers in the parched interior of Maharashtra who depend on the rains to grow rice. The beautiful Sahyadris are home to an immense blooming of wildflowers at such times.

The rains continued in September. Tired and wet after a morning’s walk in search of wildflowers, I sat on the balcony of our hotel room and took photos of a dragonfly sheltering from rain. I was happy to have caught the glitter of tiny water droplets on its wings.

We saw this Koklass pheasant in October. It was sunning itself in a little meadow about 25 kilometers from Almora in Uttarakhand. This was a couple of meters above our heads, and the pheasant was quite aware that although we could see it, we could not climb the cliff.

In November we listened to the Mingus Dynasty play several compositions by Charles Mingus, whose birth centenary year this happens to be. Mumbai has hosted jazz festivals for long periods of my life in the town, and I’m happy that we had one after a break for the pandemic.

We made the last planned trip of the year in December. The sight of the rising sun on the snows of Kanchenjunga is unforgettable. This is the light which gives its name to the mountain. Darjeeling, and Tiger Hill, are must-visits for this sight alone.