July and August are the months of rainy season which is very important for the country as most of our population is still dependent on agriculture for their living. Nature seems to open up creativity all around with growth of plants, sowing of crops, and in many other ways recycling of life seems to start. In this season I have always had the urge to paint or play my violin or sing. At the same time somehow the season also rings up a sort of nervousness inside. I am reminded of the time when after a long dreary summer vacation this is the time when schools reopened creating a flutter in the stomach at the thought of new faces of teachers and students alike, in the school or college. Memories of school days when we would deliberately get soaked in rain so that the Headmaster may ask us to go back home as we were likely to get sick, going on long cycling trips on holidays, having musical soirées in College, going out seeking a shelter under the trees to paint on spot a landscape in Dehradun, or just going out in a heavy downpour in knee deep rain water on the roads to the Coffee House, or in later life at Jaipur to go out on a long drive in rain which Shakuntala loved, come cascading with a mixture of emotions scintillating or saddening.
This season also starts a series of celebrations, raksha bandhan and janama ashtami being the main festivals. These festivals evoke memories of jubilation when remembering celeberations we had in chidhood or even later. But in recent years these days have got associated with very sad memories. Babuji, my father passed away in July 1968. Around a fortnight before the Raksha Bandhan, like every sister in India, Shakuntala would make rounds of the market selecting Raakhis for her brothers, writing letters, addressing enevelopes and packing them with roli chawal and raakhis. The sad memory of this day now is that Om Bhai Sahab, her immediate elder brother passed away a day before raksha bandhan and her rakhi reached there later. Some years later her only surviving brother too passed away around this time and her raakhi could not be tied by him as he was too ill. Later a day before Janam ashtami, Shakuntala left us for the heavens.
This season has thus become पावस ऋतू more than a season of festivals.

HT Correspondent's interview of Mohan Bhagwat RSS Chief in the issue of today 7th June '09 revived memories of RSS in the period 1940-47 when I as a student of class VII used to visit a Shakha in Aryanagar, Kanpur which was started by one Mr Sontake and Atal -Behari Bajpai। Both these gentlemen were students of SD College, Kanpur. Both were fired with enthusiasm for discipline - अनुशासन - among the student community. They were pracharaks or shikshaks, I do not know the hierarchic position they had those days. Physical fitness, social responsibility, hygiene, awareness of our heritage and culture were empahsised, through games (necessarily indigenous games like Kabaddi, kho kho etc.), talking about historical places, heroes like Maharana Pratap, Shivaji, Bhagat Singh, Azad etc., and respect for teachers, parents, and elders in the family. Never was politics discussed except probably in commune seminars - बौद्धिक - held for adult senior members. The remarks of Mr. Bhagwat that politics is not the business of RSS is therefore welcome. It is indeed necessary that organization like the RSS should concentrate on building up civic responsibility, disciplined social ethic . Only talking of the past glory of the nation or of religious supremacy does not take us any where. Religion should be something to be practiced at privately and even in the past religious bigotry and fanaticism was never the hallmark of Hinduism. RSS was started for social reform and nation building. That should remain its business. If RSS has a hold on the BJP it should be exercised to ensure that leaders who are really secular hold positions of responsibility in that organization.