The season I like most: the rainy season

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Everybody in Bengal welcome the rainy season most heartily; so do I. For days, people look forword to the first showers. The summer in Bengal is both hot and moist. People sweat and pant, and can hardly get any sleep at night. They feel dull and listless. Naturally they rejoice when they see the monsoon clouds heaping up in the sky. With a roar and rumble and blinding flashes of lightning, the rain comes pattering down. The rivers swell. The leaves look fresh and green. There is also a magical change in the brown fields all around. The meadows are carpeted with soft green. The cattle graze happily all day long. Tiny meadow-flowers--white, blue and yellow--blossom in clusters everywhere. The farmer is the happiest man if the rains are good. With the fields well-watered, he hopes for a bumper crop. That will bring him both food and cash. He can now, in fact, feed others too. But there is another side of the picture. The rains are both a blessing and a course. The country roads become bogs of muds. The urban roads too often become impassable. The rivers sometimes flood whole areas and these floods cause terrible havoc. Men and cattle are washed away. So are the houses, roads, bridges and railway lines. The floods cut off, in fact, the whole area from the outside world for days together, and are often followed by famine and pestilence. In spite of all these, the rainy season is the season I like most.