Have you ever watched an artist at work? They hold nothing back as their most intimate emotions pour out on a stage, on a canvas or through an instrument. They create magic by breathing life into their art. For a few months every year, Mother Nature sends in her favorite artist, the monsoon, to create magic; to breathe life into these lands.
A true artist, she makes a dramatic entry. Clouds of mist roll-in to set the stage for her. She dances with feet made of rain, sometimes stomping heavily and sometimes moving as delicately as the flowers she caresses with a drizzle. She smiles with sunlight on freshly hydrated landscapes. She fills the very soul of our land with water, quenching the thirst of nations. She sings with a thundering roar as the forests and its inhabitants sing the harmonies.
India in particular shares a very deep relationship with this artist (80% of our annual rainfall comes from the monsoon), our very lives depend on what she chooses to give us each year. For those of us that live in and around the Western Ghats of India, the relationship with this artist is even more intimate. We are the first to welcome her and the last to bid her farewell. This translates to a love-hate relationship that lasts for about 4 months every year. It means stepping out to buy groceries requires an umbrella and the mental fortitude to get your footwear soaked yet again but it also means your favorite stream has enough water to allow some much needed weekend aerial acrobatics.
Alongside its human inhabitants, the ghats are home to some of the most spectacular biodiversity on planet earth (with over 5,000 flowering plants, 139 mammals, 508 birds, and 179 amphibian species – source: WWF). Needless to say, the monsoon has a very special relationship with all forms of life that inhabit these green lands. From cicadas emerging from the ground after years to take their first flight to the snakes that seem to be everywhere; from the frogs that come out to sing in the rain to the birds that come out to preen when it stops.
There is one particularly interesting bird inhabitant of some parts of the Western Ghats, the Pied Cuckoo. Generally referred to as the ‘Harbinger of the monsoon’, they have always been anecdotally acknowledged as an indicator that the monsoons have arrived. It joins the monsoon in her artistic pursuits and together they perform a coordinated movement only nature could choreograph. This phenomenal work of art is illustrated beautifully by a visualization of the birds’ movement (based on eBird sighting data) in perfect synchronization with the movement of the monsoon winds.
Source: Bird Count India
While the monsoon breathes life into the entire Indian subcontinent, she’s also thoughtful and meticulous. She breathes life into every little corner. With streams full, trees well-fed and flora thriving, a walk through the forest is suddenly filled with so much more. One such creature and a prime candidate for the ‘I didn’t know spiders could do that’ award, the fishing spider (Dolomedes sp.) suddenly seems to appear more often with the increased number of streams. This spider, as the name suggests, hunt small freshwater fish in small rivulets and streams.
Each tiny stream of water flowing through the forest become their own little ecosystems with life forms of every size, shape, and color suddenly appearing around the water. Whether it’s the fishing spider on the hunt or a leopard quenching it’s thirst, these streams become critical sources of food and water. For some inhabitants of the forest, it even acts as the very cradle of life. The Paris Peacock is one of the most spectacular looking butterflies anybody can have the pleasure of seeing. It is generously sized, remarkably colored and flutters through the forest like an iridescent dream made of blue and green pixie dust. Watching them as they sit gently by the streams and lay their eggs is almost as magical as the color of their wings.
Our planet is a spectacular tapestry of life, all tied together in a delicate balance. There are moments of chaos like the big bang or explosions in hydrothermal vents that characterize the dawn of life itself. The monsoons afford us the privilege of witnessing this sort of balanced chaos in our own time. The Western Ghats are the perfect front-row seats to marvel at this artist as she dances, sings and breathes life into us.
