Weather it out

Ratna Raman

WHEN we were growing up, conversations veered around the topic of the weather in England and its central role in routine discussions. Since English weather was awfully unpredictable, it served as a handy tool to draw upon whenever an occasion for  ‘small talk’ (polite conversation) presented itself.

Geography lessons clarified that ‘weather’ indicated atmospheric conditions in any place for a short duration of time. A summer’s day in England can be  nippy (cold, windy). Unexpected showers can necessitate the use of raingear. People also divested themselves of layers of clothing in balmy weather for much-coveted sun tans and before re-bundling themselves into layers of clothing, all on the same day.

The English language introduced us to the four seasons, based on ‘climate’ (weather pattern of any place over a longer time period) records from the ‘temperate zone’ (latitudes between the tropics and the polar regions) . European poets divided the annual climate into seasons, establishing deeper connections. 

 Spring, summer, autumn and winter were four seasons that not only corresponded to specific months in the year, but also highlighted the four stages of life. Spring was associated with dawns and early mornings, and became a metaphor for birth, childhood and adolescence. Summer represented bright sunshine that stretched out well past noon, promising growth, youth and maturity. Autumn hinted at sunsets, early  evenings, ripeness and the end of the middle years while winter nudged one into dusk, the twilight zones of  old age and the darkness leading to death.

Many of these analogies are inexact when we consider the tropical climate in the Indian context. A schoolmate shifted from New Delhi, settled down in Tamil Nadu and declared that the state had only three seasons. Illustrating with grammatical help, he drew upon ‘the degrees of comparison’ — the ‘positive’, ‘comparative’ and ‘superlative’ that are used to stretch adjectives. According to him, ‘Chennai was hot (positive), then it got hotter (comparative),  before turning  into  the hottest (superlative) place to live in.

 Applying similar logic, it is possible to discover that North India provides us with more than four seasons. A brief spring rapidly shifts into a blazing summer, followed by the rains. Once the rains abate, festivities   abound in months that are autumnal in the temperate zones of the world but continue to remain warm and sunny  in North India.

 Our summers and winters are flower, fruit and vegetable filled. ‘Fall’ or autumn, characterised by shedding leaves in a  range of colours   in Europe, seldom impacts our trees and shrubs, although we do have several trees with broad-based ‘deciduous’ (Latin deciduus, fall down/off) leaves. Milk teeth, replaced by permanent teeth, are also termed deciduous.

Extreme weather conditions in North India evoke ‘three degrees of comparison’ with the adjectives, hot and cold.  ‘Cold, colder and coldest’ effectively describes North India in December and January. The cool weather conditions continue almost uptil Holi. Then the degrees of heat slowly wash over us.

We have learnt to befriend both ‘foul and fair weather’. The weather in North India is both extreme and unpredictable. Water and agriculture fed, teeming  India’s most discussed season is the monsoon. The rains replenish all forms of life and mesmerise humans with the wafting fragrance of ‘petrichor’ (smell of rainwater on dry earth).