For many farmers in India, the annual summer monsoon is an important and long awaited event. The monsoon, and the accuracy with which it can be predicted, assures or denies the people a sustainable harvest. To judge whether, a season's monsoon has come on time, and whether the rainfall was normal, is only possible in comparison to past seasons. The accuracy of monsoon predictlon thus depends largely on the amount of past data available. In a sense, the more such recorded data a scientist has at his disposal, the easier it is for him to follow the trend monsoons are likely to take.

The summer monsoon sets in over Kerala by 1 June and progresses northwards and eastwards, reaching Bombay by 10 June and Delhi by 28 June respectively. According to meteorological reports, there has been a standard deviation of only seven days in these dates of onset in the last 100 years.

As of today, there are no workable models, based on first principles, or the prediction of monsoons. It seems that our super computers do not have the necessary informatlon about wind and temperature conditions over the oceans to understand monsoon patterns. Also, sudden erratic behaviour, caused by depressions and pressure areas, could delay the onset of the monsoon. Would it be wrong to say that scientific weather prediction, based chiefly on available data, and a few experienced and synoptic observers is still largely guess-work?

Over a large part of central India, the rainy season begins in June and lasts until the end of September. The monsoon sets in between 5 and 10 June. Approximately 75% of the annual rainfall falls during the monsoon. Normally it rains for 15 days a month during July and August, accounting for two-thirds of the season's rainfall. When such normal conditions prevail, the weatherman has little difficulty in forecasting the monsoon.

The people in the forests of central India, who are predominately tribal, have never depended on recorded data of past monsoons for their understanding of weather patterns. With the onset of monsoon, many plants, like the Kodoma, begin to flower. Black ants appear in long winding rows from cracks in the ground. Some birds, like the Goborliti, migrate away from the forest, as they do every year when summer draws to a close. For the people of the forest, these have been the signs with which to interpret weather. Their memory, and the ability to read such signs, is all they have to rely on.

If, as in 1987 the monsoon is an abnormal one, the signs too are confused and unclear. Plants and animals deviate from their usual patterns of behaviour. The following are a few such examples:

• Mushrooms, which usually appear during the wet season, do so in a very specific order. By understanding this order, it is easy to tell which stage of the monsoon is in progress. The Manai mushroom, which normally appears at the end of monsoon, was seen in the first days of September in this unusual year;
• The Thummi plant, which has a root like that of turmeric, flowers every year when the rainy season begins. After the monsoon, the leaves shrivel and die; it is then that the wild boar dig up the thick roots to eat. In 1987, the wild boar did not wait for the leaves of Thummi to dry; rather they dug up the roots well before the rains ended;
• Kenil, red-ants, are eaten by both humans and bears. These ants build their nests in the folds of green leaves often on very tall trees. Egglaying for the kenil stops when summer ends but, with an erratic monsoon, nests with eggs and young ones continued to be found even in August;
• The Goborliti bird disappears from these forests when summer begins and returns only when the monsoon is over- this usual pattern was broken in 1987; these birds returned in the first days of September.

Where forests still stand, such deviations test the inhabitants' awareness of the complex and delicate relationship between their environment and the weather. This kind of an understanding of natural phenomena can only come from a lifestyle which has a direct, day-to-day contact with its surroundings. Ants, mushrooms and boars are not just food to be gathered and hunted; they are also the guides and calendars of the forest. Their behaviour tells the people when to plough their land, and whether their grain should be sown on sloping ground or flat. Conversely, it is possible to predict the behaviour of plants and animals from the weather itself. For instance, when bright sunshine breaks the monotony of a long spell of cloud and rain, Udul, monitor-lizards, come out to sun themselves. Sought after for their meat, Udul which live in burrows, abandoned ant-hills and hollows of treetrunks, are predominately hunted when the weather changes dramatically.

Modern meteorology depends, directly or indirectly, on the laying of roads, the construction of huge dams for electricity, and the ongoing processes of industrialisation, for its practice. The synchronic disappearance of forests has been viewed as an inevitable, or as a necessary, sacrifice for the progress of mankind. Rarely, if ever, are the effects of satellites and computers on the environment questioned.

On the other hand, the very fact that tribal people continue to live in the few sunviving patches of forests today, is proof enough that there are sciences as good, or not better, than 20th century meteorology. Further, it is the experimenting scientist who takes for granted the luxury of making mistakes.

Deprived of signs and forests, the links which the tribal people had with nature have been broken. Having become strangers in their own homes they have no choice but to conform to the uncertain modern tradition. Who needs monitor-lizards and red-ants when there are space-ships and satellites?

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