Sawan is not just a season but a deep spiritual feeling in Indian life, literature, and culture. This season not only makes the earth green but also refreshes the mind. Through folk songs, swings, Teej, and poetry, Sawan becomes the voice of women’s expression, waiting for love and the pain of separation.
Writers have seen it sometimes as a symbol of love, sometimes as a symbol of separation and sometimes as a symbol of nature. But today’s modern mind understands Sawan only as a season; it does not feel it. This article highlights the cultural, literary and emotional aspects of Sawan and reminds us that getting wet is important not only with the body but also with the soul.
Sawan teaches us – connect with nature, look within, and live the sensitivity.
Sawan has arrived. With the first knock of the rainy season, when the clouds gather and the drops kiss the earth, not only the trees and plants, but the inner soul of man also starts becoming green. This month is not only of rain, but of memory, sensitivity and creation. When Sawan arrives, poetry starts flowing, folk songs start resonating, anklets start tinkling and even the angry love returns after dissolving in the moisture.
Saavan is not a season; it is a state of mind
In the Indian psyche, seasons are not just seasons; they have been symbols of life. Spring comes as the month of love, summer as the month of penance, and Sawan as the month of waiting. In Sawan, often the beloved is alone, the beloved has gone to some faraway land, and while waiting, the poetry of separation is born. Therefore, the arrival of Sawan in literature is not only a natural but also a spiritual event.
Kajri songs like “Brother, send a call from your in-laws’ house”, “Why have the kajrare nayanva filled with tears”, are not just voices, they flow like water of pain.
The colour of Sawan in folk culture
The month of Sawan is the most colourful chapter of Indian folk tradition. Somewhere, Teej is being celebrated, somewhere swings are being put up, somewhere mehndi is being applied, and somewhere Rakhi songs are being prepared for sisters. This month is the time of creative flight of the female mind. Grandmothers’ stories, mothers’ songs, and the wait of daughters – everything dissolves in the air of Sawan.
In states like Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Rajasthan, Kajri, Jhula Geet, Sawani, and Hariyali Teej take the form of folk poetry. These songs are not just entertainment; they are cultural documents of women’s empowerment, where women sing their feelings, complaints, love, and even rebellion.
Saavan in literature: raining images and symbols
Literary writers have seen the month of Saavan not only as a depiction of nature but also as a representative of human emotions.
In the words of Mahadevi Varma, Sawan is the pain of loneliness:
“Change of sorrow filled with tears”.
Maithilisharan Gupt saw the month of Saavan in Shringar Rasa –
“Drops of rain scattered from the playful rays of the Chapala”
Be it Gulzar’s poetry or Nagarjuna’s language, Sawan says something for everyone. For some, it is the memory of broken relationships, for some, it is the childhood spent in a mother’s lap, and for some, it is the wet first night of love.
It is important to understand the rain inside
Today, when we sit in AC rooms and read weather updates on our mobiles, the real fragrance of Saavan gets lost somewhere. We have made rain just a traffic problem. Saavan has now become an Instagram story.
But have we ever felt the rain within?
The rain that washes us away – from ego, dryness, fatigue. Sawan moistens us again – makes us human. This season is an invitation to return to the lap of nature.
What is Sawan for today’s poets?
Today’s poets should not just depict the monsoon but also capture the inconsistencies hidden within it. When there is no water in the fields of rural India and there is waterlogging in the cities, then this inequality should also become a subject of literature.
Apart from swings and Kajri, the poem must also give expression to the unfulfilled dreams of farmers, ruined crops, and the crisis of climate change.
Saavan and Theatre: Theatrical Season
Saavan is not only a subject of poetry, it is also a favourite time for theatre and folk dramas. In many parts of North India, swing festivals, Saavani song competitions, folk dramas, and poetry symposiums are organised during this season.
This season is like a rebirth for artists. Their colours, their voices, and their stage all become moist, which reaches straight to the heart of the audience.
The modern mind and the challenge of Sawan
Today’s man is seeing the monsoon but is not feeling it. His mind is so entangled in information, machines, and facts that he takes rain only as a forecast from the weather department.
But if you want to understand the month of Saavan, you will have to open the window of your mind as well as of your room.
The drops must be allowed to fall not only on the skin, but also on the soul.
Nature’s seasonal message
Sawan reminds us that a balance is necessary between development and destruction.
The intense heat before the rains, the water crisis, and forest fires – all this shows that we have disturbed the balance of nature.
The rains of Sawan provide some relief to this deterioration, but also warn that if we do not improve now, Sawan will remain only a memory.
A simple message to end on
Let the month of Saavan come.
Let him come in.
When it falls in the form of a drop, it should fall not only on the rooftops but also in your poetry.
When it swings, it should swing not only in the trees but also in your imagination.
This is the season of the mind; you just need to recognize it.
Those swings of childhood, the henna colours applied by mother, the utensils kept on the roof, and the naked child running in the field – all are still alive somewhere inside us. Let them come out in the month of Saavan.
Request:
Whenever clouds gather, don’t pick up the mobile, open the window.
And if you feel like it, sing an old song –
“Come to meet me sometime to sing the songs of monsoon…”
