Writers Around the World…on the Big Heat

I admire scientists enormously but let’s face it, they’re not the most captivating of storytellers, even with their nifty color graphs. Darwin has a lot to say but when it comes to our heritage, he loses most of the country, the polls say, and no matter how many times anthropologists and National Geographic explain that no, we weren’t descended from apes, but from a common ancestor to both apes and humans; well, never mind. Too complicated and/or thorny for prime time, apparently.

So when the fall issue of the great English literary magazine Granta arrived, complete with brief letters from writers around the world on global warming, I perked up. At last a way to offer human truths on what many (including Andrew Revkin of the NYTimes) call "the biggest story in the world."

I’m sure Granta won’t mind if I quote from some of these wonderful pieces over the next few days. Note: I’m deliberately not going to quote the Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood, because her piece on the Artic is jolting, and for now I want to bring to light other–gentler, but no less memorable–visions of the change that is now sweeping the globe.

From The Weather Where We Are:

Urvashi Butali: INDIA

"…the weather has always been cruel in India, but it was at least more predictable. You knew the summer would be hot, and the winter cold. March, and the harvest festival of Holi, brought a hint of summer, and by April the heat had begun to kick in, rising until the monsoon broke in June or July. November, and the festival of Diwali brought a hint of winter and by December the warm clothes were out. Now you’re guessing much of the time: will the winter be cold, the summer hot? WIll the heat come early, the cold late? Nobody, not even the Met department, seems to be able to say for sure."

"Perhaps we can adjust to this new uncertainty–people are adapatable and so, up to a point, are the crops they grow. But if the monsoon were to become equally capricious–and its arrival and duration have never been completely dependable–then India would face a very different future. The monsoon is the most essential and cherished of our seaons. The harvest relies on a good monsoon, and therefore the economy relies on a good monsoon. It directly affects our well-being; it can influence the outcome of elections; it’s the only season that merits a whole raga to itself in Hindustani music. The story goes that in the court of the Mughal king Akbar, courtiers jealous of the poet Tansen persuaded the ruler to ask the poet to sing the raga Deepak, the music that is dedicated to fire, to a flame. They knew that once he began, he would become so absorbed in his music, that not only would everything else burn with the fire, but he would die too."

"But Tansen was cleverer. He agreed to sing, he had little choice. But he spoke to his young daughter, and warned her of what would happen, telling her that as he began to sing, she should take up the raga Malhar, the raga that welcomes the monsoon rains. He sang, and she sang. His music ignited a fire, everything began to burn, her music brought the rain, everything was blessed. A song that everyone across India will recognize is a song that asks for rain

Allah, give us clouds, give us rain, give us shade… Allah, give us clouds…."