RAIN, RAIN COME AGAIN! An article by Anand

Anand

A question for logophiles: What is the origin of the word “monsoon” that is also known as “moncão” in Portuguese, “monsone” in Italian and “mausson” in French?

Monsoon is bandied a million times in print and countless times in conversations all over India between June and September, but it took a while for the word to become a part of everyday language. Hobson-Jobson’s Anglo-Indian Dictionary took note in the last century that the monsoon was used as synonymous with “the half year … in South India,” meant navigational times in the Gulf of Arabia and stood for a “season” as far as Lebanon. Rudyard Kipling helped the word gain currency in 1901 when “Oho!' said Kim, and held his tongue. That was in the monsoon holidays, after he had taken the prize for mathematics.”

The periodical winds that arise out of Indian Ocean, harbinger of rain that decides not only the price of the commodities but also where destruction from flooding will occur, life-giver and havoc-wrecker in whose praise songs are sung and bells are rung, the monsoon occupies an almost mythical status in languages of India. Our languages, particularly the dialects and regional languages, may have hundreds of words to describe clouds and rain, but only one for snow/ice. Richness of expressions relating to the monsoon are particularly noticeable when one finds that the Innuit, habitants of the Tundra leading to the North Pole and once known by the pejorative name Eskimos (“eaters of raw fish”), have more than thirty words for snow and ice, but none for rain.

The Innuit’s case may be extreme, but few other words or expressions better illustrate the divide between our and the European cultures than cloud and rain. Shrawan, like the lusty month of May in England as Julie Andrews sang in the Boradway musical Camelot, “is time to indulge in every whim, whether proper or im” except that they want to it when it is bright and balmy, and we in India want to do it when it is cloudy and cool. A monsoon cloud took yaksha’s message of love to his wife in the 5^th century Sanskrit epic Meghdootam by Kalidasa, but in English being “under a cloud” means being under suspicion or under investigation.

“Clouds on the horizon” that mean ominous portents in English, spell good times for us. A cloudy day is the time for an outing, a time for picnic as school children all over India will vouch, when in other climates “a fine day” is one that is sunny and warm. A Hindi folk song says “my heart leaps up with joy when I see those dark clouds gathering in the sky.” For the English a cloud that has “a silver lining” means hope for it implies clearing of the sky, while for us the overcast and laden skies in the month of Shrawan (July-August) is when the heart “dances like a peacock bird,” when it is the time to be with one’s beloved, or to pine in his or her absence.

In Indian song lyrics, rain always brings “a dash of love, and passion in your eyes,” and is a playful paramour (“seeing me alone, the rain ruffles my hair and pulls at my clothes”). In English, saving “for a rainy day” now means preparing for a time of need, but once meant “evil times.” The Easterly is the monsoon wind that brings the long-awaited rain in much of India and creates the ambience for romance and assignations in the minds of the people; a wind with the same name is feared for its bitter cold and gale force in many European countries. But “to rain on someone’s parade” will spoil fun all the same in any language.

For generations, children all over India have chanted the English nursery rhyme 'Rain, rain go away.' Seeing that wishing the rain to go away can be a disastrous proposition in the Indian context, the words of the old nursery rhyme have been changed and some 8.5 million students in the water-thirsty Maharashtra will instead recite "Rain, rain come again” when new English language textbooks come into use this year.

As for the origin of the word “monsoon,’ it comes from Arabic mausim (season). The Portuguese took it in the 16^th century from Arab merchantmen and corrupted it to “moncão.” The Dutch, another sea power sailing the Indian Ocean to colonize the East Indies, turned it into “monssoyn” and “monssoen,” and from there it passed into English as we know it today.