Each year in the never-ending cycle of death and regeneration, the rains sweep across southern Asia. Between June and October strange sea winds surge over the land, drenching the earth with torrential downpours. This is the monsoon—a familiar word often taken to mean a violent windstorm, but in fact referring to a tumultuous season of recurring rains.

The monsoon is close to the very soul of the people it touches; it permeates the lives of the people and effects everything they do. India is especially dominated by it. For three months before the monsoon rains arrive, the heat is intense, unbearable: the earth itself is dead; farmers cannot work the stone-hard fields; bare subsistence (±) is difficult. With the rains, everything suddenly changes—India bursts into life again; fields that seemed hopelessly barren turn green and grow wildly.

The rich new season is one of beauty, but to the peasant it is a beauty shot through with possible disaster. Overflowing with the great rains, the Ganges River moves relentlessly to the sea, hiding beneath its shining but deceptive calm the horror of fields and homes overcome by flood. The honor of flood and cyclone rides always with the monsoon clouds when they come to redeem the land. The peasants have no resource but resignation.