Monsoon Magic

After twenty long years we spent the monsoon in the hills. In the last twenty years we have visited the Himalayas either to escape from the burning heat of the plains or to enjoy the view of the magnificent snow peaks. We had usually avoided the period between mid-June to early October and I remember one time when we managed to leave just before the flash floods and landslides hit the region.

This time we were finally able to reach our home in Uttarakhand, after the lockdown after the second wave was relaxed, and it was already June. Technically monsoon was still some days away, but it started raining from the day we arrived. The area had been starved of rain for nine months, but the villagers felt this was untimely rain. The potato crop was nearly ready for harvest, and a few more days of sun would have been perfect for the potato to mature. It rained incessantly for about the week and fearing that the potato would start rotting in the fields the villagers started digging it up. Unfortunately, a lot of the crop was lost, and we came across mounds of rotting potato discarded along many village pathways.

While the overall rainfall has probably been less than in other years, it has rained nearly every day over the last three months. My memories of city life during monsoons is one full of inconveniences, especially when it has rained incessantly. The need to remember to take the umbrella before going out and to remember to bring it back was a nagging fear during college days. The fear of waterlogged streets at the slightest rainfall and hours spent in traffic jams were prominent memories from the time spent in South Delhi. Living through the monsoons in the hills has opened my eyes to the grandeur of this season.

Celestial Splendor

Even though it has rained nearly every day, the weather in the hills has been full of surprises. When the downpour has been particularly heavy, the sound of the rushing rain drops on our tin roof creates a racket. There have been times when our roof has sprung a leak or two and we have had to move around the furniture, but this has been an occasional inconvenience. Within an hour or two the rains have usually stopped, and the sun has shone brilliantly while white and ominous grey clouds have covered the nearby hill tops. But before you get used to the sunshine, the swirling mists descend from the hill tops and encircle the entire valley in a white shroud. Sometimes I have spent an hour or more looking out from our large window while this clouds, the sun, the rain, and sky played hide a seek.

Sunset Moods

One has looked forward to the evening sky, especially on days when it rained in the late afternoon and then slowly cleared up. The last smidgeon of clouds on the western sky have provided the background for the most stunning sunsets. We had seen such sunsets earlier, but had completely forgotten about them in the course of the last two decades. The colours across the sky are not only remarkable but often difficult to describe. Imagine an interplay of pink, orange and blue which merge with each other to create a new colour but where each of the individual colours also stand out separately at the same time. A burning orange which turns into purples and then black as the sun slowly sets below the horizon. On a few lucky days, the lower clouds have cleared up enough to let the snow-clad peaks show through in the distance. These pictures do not do justice to the actual feast for eyes that we have witnessed.

Ground beneath our feet

We have been lucky that the rain has usually held off in the evenings, and we have been able to take our evening ramble on most days. Over these three months the orderly fields have become a tangle of green. On many fields the maize stalks are providing support to a variety of beans. There is an abundance of grass on all terrace risers. Women harvest the grass as fresh fodder in these months, but once the rains are over, these will be harvested for haymaking. In some fields the grass is the sole ‘crop’, such is their value to tide over the dry months.

While the fields look unkept, the forest floor is a storehouse of wonder. On one evening stroll we found over twenty different types of mushrooms of different colours, shapes and sizes. At first, we didn’t see them as we gingerly walked up a steep mossy path in an oak forest. Once we spotted our first mushroom there seemed to be one under every stone or fallen leaf. Some mushrooms were as big as our palms, others shaped like a fancy umbrella, while a third looked like a bullet. A couple of mushrooms were colourful like flowers – red, pink, orange.

Every square foot of forest floor is covered with wide diversity of plants. We have seen feathery ferns, tiny creepers and flowers the size of pin-heads. Some villagers have wondered whether we are looking for medicinal herbs as they see us hunched up and peering closely at some plant which happened to take our fancy. The macro lens which are there in many of the new mobile cameras have been very handy in taking close-up shots.

Rhododendron saplings

One of the most remarkable sights is seeing the way in which plants have colonised degraded soil and rock. During the first spate of rains that took place soon after we arrived, a portion of the terrace had collapsed just above the road near our house. As the soil slid it had turned upside down exposing bare earth and stone. Two months later, the pile of soil and rock is now green and has been covered with a variety of plants and grass.

One of the hardiest plants that we see on rocks is the rhododendron sapling. It is difficult to imagine how the magnificent rhododendron starts its life as a tiny sapling clinging on to a bare rockface. But there is rarely a rockface around that doesn’t have rhododendron sapling. Some are growing at very odd angles and often their stems are twisted and curled. It seems that the saplings are constantly trying to hang on and stay vertical while the earth on which they are growing has slipped down and turned over more than once. Many of these saplings will probably not survive but when then die their rotting leaves, stems, and root system will provide a little more anchor to the next generation of plants.

Water for Life

Ni Kata Ni Kata Jumrali Banja, Banjani dhura Thando Pani

These are lines of a song on environmental conservation that we had learnt many years ago. Loosely translated they mean ‘Don’t cut the oak forest, the oak forest provides cool water’. Water is a precious commodity in the mountains as a large portion of the water that comes down as rain flows down the hills and into the plains. While deep valleys have streams and rivers, the broadleaved forests are the only saviours for people who live in the hill sides and mountain tops. While the tall conifers are the trees most associated with mountains, it’s the banj oak that’s the tree of life for the people of these mountains. Unlike the English oak which is associated with timber and casks and wine and whisky making, the one thing that banj oak probably does not provide is timber. Its trunk is often gnarled and it’s the rare tree that grows straight and has a spreading canopy. Its wood is probably the best firewood around here, and its leaves make excellent fodder. Even the dry leaves are used for bedding for cattle and then is converted to farmyard manure.  

From stumps to a forest

When we came here first over thirty years ago, almost all the banj oak had had either been lopped into telegraph poles or chopped into stumps. Protecting and regenerating oak forests was one of the most vital environmental activities we were engaged in. The oak forest we now walk through during our daily walks, was a hill side full of stumps. Thirty years later it is gratifying to walk through the oak canopy and spotting mushrooms in the undergrowth. While the broad oak leaves impede the speed of the falling raindrops and reduce soil, the extensive root system helps the soil to hold water. Last week we saw a dripping oak root long after the rains had stopped confirming this ‘traditional knowledge’. There are also many contour trenches in the oak forests. These elongated pits trap the water and prevent the water from running off.

 Naulas, or small wells which collect water from an underground spring are one the commonest source of water on the mountain sides. When we were here earlier, many of the naulas were drying up. We used to have a crisis with our water supply in the house where we lived. I used to drive down more than five kilometres every couple of days with several 20 litre cans to a naula in the village where we now stay. About 10 years earlier, when were preparing to build our house, we noticed that the naula which had served us so well had dried up. Today that naula is overflowing with water once again, and a grand oak tree continues to stand as sentinel. The only difference is that the village now has a network of pipes and water is available at the doorstep. Our favourite naula is being used for washing clothes or for washing the many cars that have become commonplace.

Changing Skylines

There have been many changes over the years in this region, but the biggest change to my mind is the vast number of ‘cottages’ that have come in the area. The pleasant climate, the fantastic views and the very warm and welcoming people and increasing urban prosperity has led to many city dwellers and plains people build summer homes here. We too probably belong to this group, even though we wish to believe that we don’t. Local people earlier built their homes on spaces that were close to water, but a little far away from water courses. What looks like an innocent gadhera or ravine during the dry season can become a raging mountain stream during the rains.

Now that there are many people from outside looking for land to build, any piece of land is potential property to be promoted and built upon.  When the terrace is narrow, the builders arrange for it to be excavated and widened. If the land is unstable, the promoters promise it can be stabilised. The ‘outsiders’ are unfamiliar with the potential danger of the simar (damp land indicating underground water course) or the gadhera and there is a flurry of building activity all around us. The monsoons are the times when the integrity of such construction is severely tested.

There are three new houses being built a couple of hundred meters from our house. During the first spell of rain the retaining wall holding the levelled ground of one of these houses collapsed. For the last two and a half months the rubble has been blocking half the road. Not far from our house on the main road to Mukteswar, there is a sad remainder of a building that simply folded up like a pack of cards as the hill face above it slid down fell on the roof last year. Next to it is an ugly four storeyed construction that has been stayed by the court for violating local building norms. It may well happen that this house too will collapse with the water undermines its foundations.   

The monsoon is now in its last month. I am keen waiting to see the view of the magnificent snow peaks which starts in October, but I will also miss the monsoon drama when every day promises different moods.