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Of sawan, bhadon and rains all over

“The splendour in the grass” is there for all to see and admire in the Capital these days. See the expansive green belt in Harinagar, where grass and eucalyptus trees greet the eye and the magic of the rains begins to work. Mynahs, woodpeckers mute bulbuls pigeons, doves and sparrows peck in the grass, disturbed now and then by a crow or a swooping kite or the restless brain-fever bird with its plaintive cry for water, much like the harassed citizens of Delhi though on a different note.

A whole family of woodpeckers feed together. They look very much like a group of nuns out on a Sunday picnic, for there is a certain poise and dignity as they move. The doves come down for a quick worm or two and then fly back to the trees from where they coo one at a time like a devotee at his chant. The crows do tease them from time to time but are chased away, while the pigeons make love in discreet corners where peace seems to drip like the morning dew.

Far away is the hullabaloo of men and buses on the move and far away too are the mundane worries as you watch this scene and count the buffaloes grazing in the distance. Will these pleasures be there after another 50 years? Perhaps the open spaces will make way for concrete jungles. But as of now the scene is idyllic with the skies loaded with clouds that sometimes part to allow the sun to have a peep at the goings on below.

You walk across the fields of grass and come across men armed with scythes and sickles resting under the shade of a tree. It’s their job to keep the grass down wherever it has outgrown itself. But as they go about their task one might as well pity the grass like old Sadi who saw a handful of it in bloom amidst the roses and in the crevices of old monuments and palaces. It was plucked out and wept, “Ours is no place here nor there though in the garden of the Lord we grew”. The rain hut stands below a tree as you turn from the iron and steel market into the road leading to Inderpuri and then on to the prestigious Pusa Institute. Nobody calls it the “rain hut”, but it is there for those who peep into the nursery that uses it as a greenhouse. When the sun shines at its brightest the hut is the coolest spot in the area. And when the sky darkens with rain clouds you feel some hidden connection between the two as you hurry to take shelter in the hut.

Rain houses have been a special feature of India from ancient times. The rajas and raos had them in their gardens and the Moghuls added to their beauty. The Sawan-Bhadon pavilion in the Red Fort is just one example of an idea borrowed from sun-baked Rajasthan where the Rajputs had Monsoon palaces surrounded by lakes or ponds.

When the British came they did not know that rain could be a cause for celebration. But long exposure to sunlight taught them something more than “the rain in Spain stays mostly in the plain”. They were convinced of the joys of the rainy season — the perennial Abdar.The Muslims, of course, had learnt of these joys earlier and added it to the poetry of the monsoon. Besides Khusrau, Rahim and others, we have Nazir, Mir, Zauq, Ghalib and those in the 20th Century extolling “barsat ki raat” and lovers’ meetings prolonged by the rain, the thrill of lightning and the roll of thunder.

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