Monsoon’s Magical Melodies

Monsoon has a myriad moods and melodies, effortlessly traversing the vast distance from nursery rhymes to kurals to kavyas to megh malhar to kajris to Bollywood songs.

Years ago, a nursery rhyme for our KG students sang: Rain, Rain, go to Spain; Don’t show your face again. Kids in chilly, smoggy, drizzle-drenched London might hate rain; but in our country they break into euphoric dance at the onset of the monsoon, and so appetising is petrichor, the heady aroma of wet earth that many kids are tempted to lick it when mother is not watching, like Krishna did much to Yashoda’s exasperation. I hope NEP (National Education Policy) might now have dropped the nursery rhyme more apt for English weather, and introduced one imbued with Bharatiya sanskruti; something like kale barshatu parjanyah: may the rains shower their timely blessings.

O Megh, Heavenly Visitor!

O Megh, today, on आषाढस्य प्रशमदिवसे[i]:

ashadhasya prashama divase – the auspicious final day of Ashadha, I welcome you with a handful of red-and-white fragrant madhukamini, snow-white jasmine, chandni, yellow kaner, and white champas with a yellow navel (ignore the clue-less angrez who call this holy flower offered to our gods the ‘Singapore Graveyard flower’). All your creations - tera tujhko sounpta – with reverence.

Look, how the trees - neem, kachnar, saptaparni, chirol, peepal, amla, bael - dance like dervishes drenched in divinity. Soft, green shoots of grass wearing tiny white, pink, yellow, and violet flowers carpet the earth to caress the tender feet of your rain-drops. Countless butterflies – white, cream, yellow, black, striped, orange, and maroon – dance merrily making ever-shifting mobile festoons for your welcome.

Listen, the cuckoos lead the concert of birds - magpies, drongoes, purple sunbirds, doves, pigeons, and others – playing their much-rehearsed welcome songs, and squirrels, frogs, and jhingur also join the chorus. Enjoy their soothing song at dawn before the cacophony of human noise drowns it. Ignore those loud-speakers screaming prayers to competing gods; you know well that a silent but sincere prayer reaches the true god that makes better humans.

How thoughtful of you to extend your cool feet all the way from the skies for me to touch and salute, O Megh, Carrier of Water, the nectar of life. Thank you for the oh-so-comfortable floating water-bed in my mother’s womb; but for that primal water, I won’t be here at all.

O Megh, now that humans rush about like breathless Blinkit delivery ‘partners’ to finish a million tasks and meet impossible deadlines; it may be apt to welcome you with a few humble kurals, with apologies to Tiruvalluvar:

Rain, Heaven’s Free Nectar;

Consume with CARE!

Rain, Life of Life;

Without, only strife.

Blessing pours as rains;

Curse, when fails.

I am no yaksha banished by Kubera from majestic Alakapuri to forlorn Ramgiri to suffer a year’s separation from my beloved spouse, so I have no message for you to carry to distant Mount Kailash. But permit me to welcome you with a few words inspired by the great Kalidasa:

Instantly drowning all cacophony from below

The thunder-claps play their celestial music;

Contemptuously eclipsing the meagre man-made lights

Luminous lightning paints the sky in bold strokes;

Varsha ritu marches through this water-starved land

Hydrating all life with ambrosial drink.

O Megh, why does Ujjain no longer look like a ‘brilliant piece of Paradise come down to earth’? Why is Shipra so emaciated and sickly? Did Mahakal open His third eye to instantly evaporate Gandhavati[ii], the Fragrant Stream flowing at His feet, for some unpardonable transgression?

Why are Vindhya, Mekhala (Maikal), Satpura, Amarkantak, Chitrakut, and other hills and mountains tonsured? Did someone in their family die recently? Why are there gaping wounds in their bodies? Have they returned from some bloody war?

Kalidasa

Ritusamharam was possibly Kalidasa’s maiden kavya, a majestic depiction of the six ritus (seasons) of the Indian sub-continent.

The Hindu year begins with grishma, the summer season, and Chapter 1 (Prathama Sarga) deals with it. Chapter 2, Dvitiya Sarga deals with Prabrut Kala or Varsha ritu.

Here is Chandra Rajan’s masterly translation of Kalidasa’s opening and concluding stanzas portraying Varsha ritu[iii]:

“With streaming clouds trumpeting like haughty tuskers

With lightning-banners and drum beats of thunder claps,

In towering majesty, the season of rains

Welcome to lovers, now comes like a king, my love.”

The poet concludes Ritusamhara’s dvitiya sarga, his 28-stanza rain-song in anustubh chhanda with:

“A source of fascination to amorous women,

The constant friend to trees, shrubs and creepers,

The very life and breath of all living beings –

May this season of rains rich in these benedictions

Fully grant all desires accordant with your well-being.”

The Excellence of Rain: Tirukkural

Tirukkural, Tiruvalluvar’s seminal work, presents 1330 kurals or short, pithy couplets traditionally organised into three books.

Each kural is a pithy statement in just seven words – four in the first part and three in the second. It’s often an aphorism, the distilled wisdom of the community, but mostly capturing the contemplative essence of Tiruvalluvar’s own experience and wisdom. No wonder, he is venerated as a sage and a seer.

In Book I, after the opening ten kurals ‘In Praise of God,’ the next ten illustrate ‘The Excellence of Rain’. That’s how important water was even during Tiruvalluvar’s time.

Tiruvalluvar applauds rain as the heavenly nectar that nourishes all life; but eight out of these ten kurals brood on the severe distress that would ensue from lack of rain. Not man alone would suffer; the grass its seedbeds won’t grow; oxen herd would be sullen; even the vast ocean would decay.

“Even as Nature, without water goes pitifully a-begging, Man’s compass without rain loses its bearing.”[iv]

Saavan ke Geet

I made an oral farmaish to You Tube to play saavan ke geet, and of the several playlists it readily offered, I picked up one, and was delighted when it played my favourite - saavan ka mahina, pavan kare sor. This song from Milan (1967), filmed on Sunil Dutt and Nutan, sung by Lata and Mukesh, written by Anand Bakshi, and music composed by Laxmikant-Pyarelal became an instant hit. Anand Bakshi’s talent for mellifluous lyrics had already been noted from his hit songs for Jab Jab Phool Khile (1965) which included the evergreen romantic song paradeshiyon se na ankhiyan milana filmed on the 27 year-old Shashi Kapoor, the ravishingly-handsome heart-throb of ladies young and old.

I had heard this song several times over the years; but now I listened to it, and read the lyrics to better appreciate the song. Being a Hindi-challenged Odia, I was stumped with the mukhda itself, and sought help from my dear friend Madan whose mother-tongue is Hindi, and he is a published poet.

‘Shor (शोर) means noise, and sor (सोर) is root; so why does Sunil Dutt teach Nutan the incorrect pronunciation?’ I asked.

‘शोर’ is correct, but the hero using the local dialect sings it as ‘सोर,’ he explained.

All these years, I was clueless about this basic distinction in pronunciation that illustrated the yawning difference in ‘class’ between Gopi, the rustic boatman and Radha, the elegant, suave, and educated daughter of a zamindar.

Reading the lyrics further, I stared at mauzuua; mauz is fun but what does mauzuua mean? The English translation of the song helped, and the Urdu Dictionary at Rekhta.org further clarified: it means waves. What cryptic message do the waves carry for us, asks the heroine? Where are you headed, asked the river? Tragically, the lover duo drowned when the boat capsized in an eddy.

Anand Bakshi was born in saavan on July 21, 1930 at Rawalpindi, and his family migrated to Delhi during the Partition. He had brief stints in the Navy and the Army before settling down at Bombay to write songs for Hindi films. Why did he write this song in a curious mix of Braj, Awadhi, and Brijbhasi dialects; to suit the character of the hero, a chora Ganga kinarewala, and a boatman for whom shor was sor and whose jiyara frolicked in vanma with the joyful abandon of a mor at the advent of saavan?

The lyrics include the traditional tropes for saavan songs –away at videshva is balam bairi whose sandeshva the most helpful purvaiya has brought for the pining beloved. Eastern UP and Bihar have been exporting their men-folk to distant lands since long; and the separation is most painful to both parties especially in saavan ka mahina.

Thus, this hit song was written by a poet born in Rawalpindi, raised in Delhi, and settled in Bombay using a medley of dialects – Brijbhasa, Avadhi, and Bhojpuri – with a few Urdu words (mouzuu, ishara, marzi) thrown in. Note the delightful turn of phrase in naiya sambhalo kit khoye ho khivaiya – Steady the boat, O Boatman; where are you lost? Ignore the ingredients, enjoy the superb flavour and taste, as millions have enjoyed and continue to enjoy (You Tube hits of more than 40 million!)

Resources & References

1. The Complete Works of Kalidasa, Volume One- Poems, Translated by Chandra Rajan, Sahitya Akademi, First Edition – 1997

2. Sanskritdocuments.org for Kalidasa’s Ritusamharam and Meghdutam in Sanskrit

3. Kalidasa Granthavali (Sanskrit text with Hindi commentary by Pt. Ramtej Shastri, Choukhamba Surbharati Prakashan

4. Tiruvalluvar: The Tirukkural, A New English Version by Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Aleph Classics, 2015

5. Tirukkural – English Translation & Commentary by G.U. Pope, W.H. Drew, John Lazarus, and F.W. Ellis; First published by W.H. Allen & Co, 1886

[i] A variant of the more popular ashadhasya Prathama divase; Source: The Complete Works of Kalidasa, Volume One- Poems, Translated by Chandra Rajan, Sahitya Akademi, First Edition - 1997.

[ii] Ibid: Mahakal temple was located on the bank of Gandhavati, an arm of Shipra. Sadly, the river no longer exists.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Tiruvalluvar: The Tirukkural, A New English Version by Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Aleph Classics, 2015.

Prasanna Dash