If a Malayali writes an autobiography, at least one chapter is sure to dwell on the monsoons. The stormy rains in June and July are part of the fabric of life in Kerala. One might begin their tale with the flash floods of ’58, while another may talk of the rains turning the courtyard in an ancestral home glassy and grey.
For me, it’s the memory of the heat of many months that dissipates in a second when the first few drops timidly hit the ground. Growing up in the village of Madikai in Kasaragod district of Kerala, my annual school holidays were all about the scent of overripe paranki maanga (cashew apples), which I had to pick from the family orchards every day. Summer days were also about walking to the temple grounds in the neighbouring villages to watch theyyam, sitting idle under thatched sheds at noon, waiting for heavy, yellow mangoes to drop from the trees, and playing football for hours on end on the paddy fields, now barren after the harvest.
But memories of summer evaporate as soon as the monsoon rages in, with the scent of the wet mud overpowering all other senses. With the days of my youth, the carefree summer vacations, long gone, it is the first rain that brings back a flood of memories from Madikai.
Photo essay by Thulasi Kakkat