MONSOON NOSTALGIA

Nostalgia can be a cruel reminder, sometimes. It hits you like a whiff of breeze while sitting in the rickety old KSRTC bus. It caresses you while wading through waist deep waters on the roads. It teases you with thoughts of the good times gone by. It takes you back to your childhood. It brings an involuntary smile on your face when you see students of your alma mater trying to stay dry in the torrential rains. It nourishes your mind like the first drops of the monsoon does to the parched Earth. It touches your heart in a way only it can. It brings back memories that you have hidden deep within you, reminding you that those times will never come by again, whats gone is gone, and that every human being always carries the burden of the past along with him. It gives a new meaning to your future. It reminds you of the cyclicality of life. No matter where you are in life, where you end up, one day you will end up face to face with your maker. Thats life. A journey from Birth unto Death.

Its really strange how the monsoons are related to Nostalgia. Well, for anyone who is from the part of the country I hail from, its really a very important phenomenon. many peoples' lives revolve arount it and its vagaries. its time for sowing your next round of crops, mainly rice, Kerala's staple diet. It brings with it the holy month of karkidakom, also the beginning of the festival season. And most recently, it brongs with it Chikungunya, Viral Fever, Rat fever, Dengue and malaria. Its always associated with schools reopening after the summer vacations, advertisements of umpteen varieties of umbrellas, droplets of water racing against each other to form a puddle in the smallest of deppressions in the soil, and what not. Its always associated with life, always with fresh energy and vigour. But there is more to it than mere nostalgia and a feeling of exhilaration.

The monsoon is a huge natural engine, driven by the temperature differences over sea and land; in summmer the air around the alnd grows hot, expands and rises, so cool sea air must flow in to equalize the pressure. This sets up an aerial current from the Indian Ocean. It heads for india, and th evaporating water it picks up over the oceans falls as rain when it reaches the land. This vapour cpndensation releases latent heat which warms the air, pushing it upwards and allowing even more wet air to come in from the sea. But it also cools the land, always driving that heating and upward convection further into India. That is why the monsoon is a travelling phenomenon, always folllowing a stringent path, very much like a train following an itinerary.