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.