My new home is on Veli beach near Trivandrum, a bijou one-room writer’s studio on the edge of a fishing community. We moved last winter and (city-dwellers to the core thus far) have watched agog the manner in which seasonal tides grow and shrink the beach by hundreds of meters over the changing seasons, last monsoon causing the waves to lash fiercely at our newly installed back gate, as though sensing the arrival of strangers.

More significantly, I have learnt a great deal about the capricious fortunes of our neighbours, fisher-folk so dependent on the vagaries of the sea. On rare occasion, I have seen one of their country boats haul in lakhs worth of fish but, more often, they merely manage to dredge up only the paltriest of catches, a few baskets of silvery natholi amidst half a dozen stray ayala. If spotted in my garden, I am always asked if I want any fish for my own kitchen and a plastic bag containing a pair of sand-encrusted mackerel is handed over the compound wall despite all protestations.

The kinship I have developed with my hard-working neighbours gave pause for thought yesterday when I noticed a poignant sight. To the accompaniment of fisher songs, the boats were all being hauled up into backyards and empty plots where they were put to bed and swaddled in rubber sheets to be kept safe during the long months when tides and currents combine to turn the ocean from friend and life-giver into a volatile and unpredictable enemy.

Monsoon - the bringer of such fecundity to Kerala’s lush land is, ironically, cause for famine in the sea and hardship for those who make their living from it. Fishing lore has it that the seas need these months for spawning and regeneration of stock, and there are inevitably complaints from the artisanal fishermen about trawlers that flout these age-old practices. But nature unerringly enforces its rule as Kerala’s monsoon is a force that is not to be lightly reckoned with. As the sea starts to churn and heave, even trawler owners consider the risks before taking to the waters. For the next two months, fishermen will have to scrub around seeking menial work wherever possible. Many will merely sit and while away the hours on the beach, chewing tobacco and playing cards. The youngsters, more willing to be unconventional, are building cages and breeding pigeons in the neighbouring maidan but a general air of lassitude prevails.

By contrast, the mood in the nearby tourist village is buoyant, the place suddenly packed with tourists from other states who disembark in droves from air-conditioned buses to crowd the rickety KTDC floating café in search of vazhakkappam and karrikum-vellum. Further along, groups of children link hands with worried adults to stand sodden and screaming at the water’s edge as tea-coloured breakers wash wildly over them. Beyond, speedboats take stomach-flipping turns on Veli lake.

A resort owner in Vizhinjam recently mentioned north Indian tourists coming to escape the heat and witness the onset of the monsoons. An entire industry, both imaginative and inventive, is developing around the two-month period when, in times past, tourists stayed away from rain-lashed Kerala while locals cowered indoors or took respite in ayurvedic treatments. Now the south-west monsoon is talked of in awe-struck tones, as a phenomenon worth observing, even foreign tourists aware of how unusual and dramatic a sight it is via accounts like Alexander Frater’s ‘Chasing the Monsoon’.

A visiting friend stood on our terrace and noted that we were in a prime position to witness the famed sight. He described the manner in which everything grows dark and hushed as the time nears; the birds, the trees, all of life silenced by the huge force approaching from afar. In the distance, he said, a black veil will form over the darkening sea and, while it begins its inexorable journey towards India’s southernmost shores, the air will fill with the hum of anticipation. As people bolt their doors and windows and batten down the hatches, the feelings are of both fear and excitement when the first raindrops are heard hammering down on the rooftiles. Will it be a good monsoon this year, is the question on everyone’s lips.

All of India’s eyes are on Kerala as it faces the first onslaught while the rest of the country continues to reel under gruelling summer temperatures. In the weeks that follow, television news reports will show the passage of the rain moving across the other states, gradually losing fury and force.

For now, however, I stand on my terrace and await those pregnant black clouds that will soon envelope my small dwelling on the brink of the sea. Will it be a good monsoon, I cannot say just yet.

 

Jaishree Misra is the author of eight novels published by Penguin and Harper Collins. Her new novel, ‘A Love Story for My Sister’, is just out.