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What Memories of Your Childhood Are Tied up with the Seasons?

In Singapore, most days are a patchwork of sun, rain, and clouds. It was the same in Malaysia, where the rains could build into storms, then disappear. It’s hot and humid. I’m in the tropics, what do I expect?

I miss the monsoon in India, when rains meant continuous downpours for days on end, sometimes flooding my small-town street so I didn’t have to go to school. We ate hot rice porridge and fried snacks, and I could curl with a book and read, or write in my journal, or maybe even scribble a letter or two.

I remember also the rains in my grandma’s village in hinterland India, where the rice fields turned green and welcomed a host of white cranes, and the air felt heavy with moisture and the call of bull-frogs.

Once in a while, like today, when it rains in Singapore, I try and bring back those days of nostalgia, when rain wasn’t an everyday affair. I trawl through my notebooks and once I find a sentence that thrums with energy, I use it as a prompt and fill pages of a new notebook. I picture in my head the  jungle in the village where fronds of bamboo bowed and dripped rain into the pond below.

In reality, that bamboo jungle is long gone, but the village remains. In my imagination, that throng of bamboos would sway in the rain for as long as I’m able to write.

Is there a season that puts you in the mood to read, or write? What memories of your childhood and youth are tied up with the seasons?

Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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17 Comments

  • alex xavier says:

    Nice article, Malaysia is really only have two seasons one is very hot session and fully rain that's it.
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  • Jhon peter says:

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  • Laura W. says:

    I lived in Germany as a kid, and the snow and skiing there was epic. It didn't make me want to write, necessarily…I had a very "go play outside" childhood. But I find that I tend to write about snow a lot.

  • Deniz Bevan says:

    Oh that's lovely – both the description of the rains and the idea of using those memories to help with writing.
    Mine are the opposite – hot, dry sun reminds me of summers spent at my grandmother's in Turkey.
    A great idea for a blog topic!

  • The monsoons are truly a wonderful time to write – you're locked in, the rains weave their magic and the hot snacks and drinks keep your spirits up! ЁЯЩВ

  • garimanag says:

    Beautiful write up ..

  • рдкреНрд░рднрд╛рд╡реА !!!
    рд╢реБрднрдХрд╛рдордирд╛
    рдЖрд░реНрдпрд╛рд╡рд░реНрдд

  • Jocelyn Rish says:

    That's so cool that you use lines from your old journals to inspire new writing. In South Carolina we really only have two seasons – really longs summers and super short winters. But some of my vivid childhood memories are of hanging out at the neighborhood pool: swimming and playing until my lungs ached.

  • pallavi puri says:

    I can so relate to your post above. It did rain quite a bit yesterday and it reminded me of the monsoon in India. Such a joy ЁЯЩВ

    Thanks
    Pallavi
    palulife.blogspot.sg

  • Pk Hrezo says:

    Oh I love reading about your memories. I love the rain too. Those were my fave days in summer when it'd rain all day and we'd stay inside and find creative things to do. I spent a few months in India awhile back but it wasn't monsoon season. It's such a vibrant place!

  • Cold, wet days make me want to curl up and read or write. We had a lot of those in Oregon.

  • Leoma Retan says:

    I grew up in Wisconsin and also remember the deep snows. I missed them when I lived in California so I moved to the northeast. For me, the memory of California weather is a memory of fear – of the time the wildfires that happen every year in southern Cal came within a mile of my house. I could smell the smoke just by going outside and see the fire if I walked a block down the street.

  • klahanie says:

    Hi Damyanti,

    Yes, it's me. Are you impressed I'm commenting at gone four in the morning? Do I ever sleep? Probably not.

    And when the rain doth pour in Singapore. You recollect those times of once there was a bamboo jungle. Thoughts back to those childhood days. Lost in a memory as the rain doth pour in Singapore.

    Any season is a reason for me to write. Of course, generally speaking in England, it's like a continuous autumn.

    Have a peaceful, thoughtful weekend, Damyanti.

    Gary

  • I have lots of memories tied to the seasons. The fall fair and apple orchards in the autumn, and building elaborate snow forts in the winter. I love to read most in those cold days.

  • Winter- with snow piling up outside, there is no better place to be than in front of the fire with a good book.

  • Never happy with the weather but then I'm English and as everyone knows we Brits love to moan about the weather.

  • I used to live in the Midwest and I remember snow drifts as high as our rooftop. We don't get snow here often and I miss it.