Rains and Romance – Snapped Relationship

Rains and romance have been so intricately interwoven, particularly in literature, that it is hard for us to accept demonising

The monsoon time, which represents rains is also the time when we experience floods in the plains and landslides and flash floods in the mountains.

This is what Mother Nature has been doing since times immemorial. Really speaking there is no big a deal in the occurrence of these incidences, particularly during the monsoon period.

No denying that in the previous decade or so, there have been a number of excessive rain related incidences, particularly in the Himalayan states wherein massive loss of human lives and property has been caused by these.

For that matter, climate scientists have long been putting forth warnings of increasing frequency of extreme weather events.

But then, have all these incidences – be those in 2010, 2012 and 2013 in Uttarakhand or those in 2022 and 2023 in Himachal Pradesh – been caused solely by Mother Nature?

Does the policies related to growth, development, construction and habitation, and of course general apathy of the masses, have no role in triggering these disasters?

Rains and Romance – Being Erased 

Taking lead from these devastating incidences, a campaign has been going on for quite some time in the media, more so on social media, to demonise monsoonal rains, and general public – with the relationship of rains and romance seemingly erased – has been made to believe that monsoonal rains are of no good – these are devastating and cause human suffering, misery, inconvenience and discomfort.

Repeated warnings issued by meteorological department have only strengthened this perception. Rather than issuing routine weather forecasts they have been generally sensationalising forthcoming rains, and marketing these in yellow, orange and red coloured packages. This provides a sought after rallying point to the media, while for the people at the grassroots level there exists no way of judging the implications of these different coloured wrappers.

Impact forecast

Though mandated for issuing weather forecasts, IMD has lately started issuing landslide and flood warnings as well, and that too without consulting the nodal agencies for these hazards, and this is proudly dubbed as being the value added service – impact forecast.

Going through some of these impact forecasts issued during the previous days, one fails to understand as to what value does these really add to general understanding of anyone, if these only put forth that, “the areas susceptible to landslide and flood are to be affected by these”, without specifying any particular location.

One wonders if anyone really finds these warnings of any use?

Or else the forecasters underestimate the knowledge, as also hazard and risk assessment related acumen of the ones traditionally living in the proximity of landslide or flood prone areas.

Moreover, in present day situation wherein everything – from paan shop to motor garage and road side dhaba are geotagged – and information pertaining to these is available in public domain, most people are interested in getting location specific and precise warnings rather than getting to know that some parts of their district are to experience heavy rainfall in next 24 or 48 hours.

Days of general weather warnings or advisories are really over – Dil Mange More.

False alarms

When the warnings issued during the previous some weeks are compared to actual occurrence of the forecasted incidence, the success rate comes out to be dismally low. This only implies that the forecasters are only interested in saving their skin, in case some adverse incidence takes place. In such a situation they have an alibi of having issued a warning previously and the ball is across the net.

Don’t you think that weather forecasters are playing Sherlock Holmes with the ones responsible for managing disasters at the grassroots level?

Life Without Rains and Romance

And by demonising rains in collusion with the media, aren’t the weather forecasters trying to convey that monsoonal rains are not required, and the romanticism built around monsoonal clouds and rains right from the time of Kalidas is but a misnomer?

Can they or anyone else for that matter, testify that failed monsoon would cause lesser miseries than those caused by monsoonal rains?

What would be the impact of failed monsoon on people and economy?

Has any cost benefit analysis done by anyone?

Whatever the claims, we still are an agrarian society, and large proportion of our agricultural lands are unirrigated. So the fate of the farmers is decided by monsoonal rains, and failed monsoons are to add to the agony of the primary producers that already do not get fair price of their produce, and are manipulated by middlemen to the extent that they are unable to repay their petty debts and are left with no option but to commit suicide.

Studies correlating farmers’ suicide rates with failed rains clearly put forth the importance of the bounty of nature, and leave no room for further debate or discussion.

Moreover, with no rains our hydropower projects would be starved and taps in our homes would run out of water, leave apart water for industrial, agricultural, and allied purposes.

How long can you think of surviving on generators and bottled water?

Anyone cursing rains needs to check these parameters before dubbing Mother Nature as being the culprit.

To conclude

Mother Nature can never be the culprit and pointing finger at Her can only be dubbed as being a deliberate ploy of diverting attention – not only of the general public but also of decision makers – from the actual problem, and ensuring that the root cause is never addressed.

So, we need to welcome rains and associated bounty of Mother Nature and seriously put in place team of multidisciplinary experts to identify the underlying problems in consultation with the affected population, and suggest ways of plugging the loopholes in our system to ensure that the showers don’t result in disaster and masses continue to romanticise monsoonal rains, as they have always done.