Reflections in the Goan rain

The footfall of tourists has been low with the Indian Meteorology Department (IMD) red flagging many days. But with the sun beginning to peep out for short periods, the good news is that those who were here escaped the fury of the monsoons. May it continue that way!

Nature has its own language, and man tends to understand the same, though sometimes we prefer to ignore, or at best, pretend to be ignorant.

Come the rain and the sea spews back what was thrown in it, and hence the mess all along the shoreline with there being no excuses anywhere. Nature cleans itself up naturally, something for us to learn.

For a change, no loud music could be heard in North Goa or rather the rains took over and, also, no one in the north dared break the Supreme Court order of no loud music after 10 pm.

The elderly and the children in the villages went to bed listening to raindrops falling on their panes instead of the rattling sound created by the loud music.

With the rains pounding the State, social media took a back seat and after long, there were no videos or posts of drunk tourists sitting on cars or vehicles landing in fields or ponds.

The rains, and this is what we call a proper monsoon, awakened the days of yore in memory of those who have seen such monsoons before, and was a lesson to youngsters of today of what it means to live in the rain.

From North to South Goa, this monsoon was a time for the elderly Indians, for whom this place is now a first home, to realise that this is the time that has a special place for families – and it is not just about feasts and partying, it is the to show we care for each other.

Rains also means flu, and a flu that could be bad, especially to those who are not aware of the joys of getting wet, getting dirty and sitting with a nice hot soup after mucking around in the rain.

There have been casualties and with them, loss of life. In most cases, those who went – never to come – did it in bidding with their time. No one knows when one’s time is near and there is nothing one can do.

A lady found her calling through a tree that fell on her in Panjim. Trees fell in other parts of the State, and in some cases broke dwellings. We have been felling trees when they should not have been, but for sure trees have not been following our bidding.

Many roads got washed away, leaving cavernous potholes all along. Many will not feel the immediate repercussions of such craters, but when they do, memories of moments in Goa will probably ease away the pain.

It is safe to say that one phase of the rains is over, and in this phase, human apathy has been exposed. The truth was for all of us to see we will always be in denial.

Nobody normally wants to see the truth and by doing so we show that we are not ready to learn. By not learning, we are neither going back nor forth, but are stagnating. And many of us could end up as our own seeds of discomfort – still in search of reality.

Let’s cleanse ourselves in this rain, so that in the next, we can start having fun.