Newsroom word-nerds scour different names for rain in Indian regional lexicon

It started with a drop A gifted storyteller colleague was telling us about ldquomurgeshwarrdquo the rain that pours down continuously for 20 days and fills up wells and tanks ldquoWersquod be imprisoned indoors and when the sun peeked for a few hours wersquod rush out to dry our washed clothes and aam papadsrdquo she said about vacations with her grandparents in MangaloreDifferent types of rain have different words in Indian languages If the Scots can have over 400 words for snow and the Inuit people 50 surely Indian language lexicons are awash with words for Indrarsquos giftUnabashed wordsnerds in the Sunday midday newsroom we ran out to catch them like bored children to unseasonal downpour Everyone across this newspaperrsquos editorial departmentsmdashsports entertainment even our colleagues at the grouprsquos Urdu newspaper Inquilab hurriedly dialled their parents to ask them the names for different kinds of rainAn aerial shot of terrace farms during the monsoons in Siang Arunachal Pradesh Rain thatrsquos less than a drizzle is called sipsipia boroxun by the AhomyaEvery language we found had one for the rain that comes when the sun is outmdashthe oon paus rain during sunshine as it is called in Marathi Itrsquos also called kolhyacha wolfrsquos or landgyacha foxrsquos lagna or wedding or kaksialer biyer logno the foxrsquos wedding mahurat with kaksial being a kind of fox in Bengali In rural dialects of the state it is also called khak siyal er biyeHowever our favourite terms for it come from the regional departments of colloquialism Nagda paus naked rain in Marathi nagodiyo varsaat in Kutchhi naago varsaad in the Parsi dialect of Gujarati and monkeydonkey wedding in the playgrounds of Orlem Bandra and VasaiSophisticated and poetic Urdu judging us crude city folk from a corner with ittar behind its ears calls it baaraaneaaftaabi and of course it has a name for moonlit showers toomdashbaaraanemehtaabiIf itrsquos the nonstop variety that irritates by adding to the cityrsquos chaos itrsquos the riprip paus for Maharashtrians A married couple takes a selfie outside the Marriage Registrarrsquos Office in Thane in a file photo from July 2021 PicGetty ImagesBut letrsquos start at the first drop Rohini is what the first premonsoon shower in Mangalore is called Shirley Crasto our colleaguersquos aunt informs us Gujaratis call reliefbringing rain like this parvatiya and if it cools the environs down the Marathispeaking mandali calls it tushar ldquoChaar tushar padun gele tar kasa garva ala nai Havenrsquot four tushars brought the temperatures downrdquo This reliefbringing rain beneficial to all creatures is called baaraanerehmat in UrduTo the English a ldquodrizzlerdquo may just be a sprinkle at most but our subcontinent has names for every incremental degree Itrsquos called boondabandi in most north Indian statesmdashUttar Pradesh Rajasthan Gujarat and ilshegudi brishti in Bengali In Telugu itrsquos a chinukulu taraunkha in Punjabi and kinkinia boroxun in Assamese Less than a drizzle and itrsquos sipsipia boroxun for the Ahomya of Arunachal and Assam In Tamil a very light rain is tuli mazhai light drizzle is tural and aheavy drizzle saralIn the Havyaka dialect of KarnatakamdashAshish Thippanakaje a student of SDM College in Ujire informs usmdashitrsquos tunturu malle Malle the rolled lsquolrsquo is the generic word for rain Konkanis call it a chirichiri paus if itrsquos the nonstop variety that irritates by adding to the cityrsquos chaos itrsquos the peerpeer or riprip paus for Maharashtrians The spitting variety is called jhir jhir brishti in the Bengalispeaking belt which calls a scattered shower bikhitto brishtiSurprisingly Gujaratmdashnot a rainravaged state Biparjoy excludedmdashhas a wide lexicon It starts with chhanta or splashes of rain and progresses to furfur which barely dampens the skin then it grows into a jarmar varsaat or fora which is a proper drizzle that grows into a kara before it earns the reputation as legitimate rain Fora is also hail in KutchiWhen it pours heavily the kind that washes away all the romance associated with pitterpatter itrsquos the dobapita boroxun in Assam and moosaldhaar in many other languages But that too has as many names as it has varieties In Gujarat the heavy olavrushtmi can be a pachediva if accompanied by a wind that bends trees Jhamb is what Punjabis call rain thatrsquos falling aslant due to the wind Punjabis call a squall localised windy rain jhaanja which could elevate into a jhakkad jhaanja a cyclonic stormIf it reminds you of a tap running at full force itrsquos Gujaratrsquos nevadhaar varsaat Careful this could grow into a lsquodouble rainrsquo with large drops An anradhaar varsaat If it starts running in streams from thatched roofs that resemble lsquosupdisrsquo or bamboo rice cleaners that separate grain from the chaff itrsquos supdadharr varsaat The paann varsaat waterlogs fields but thefabangh or vavanijod washes away crops and causes landslides In Kannada pushya poornarisha is temperamental and floodcausing The most aptlynamed of these is the oti bhari brishti very heavy rainfall of Bengali called khichuri brishti because it makes you reach for a comforting bowl of steaming hot khichdi with ghee But matters could get worse It may end in pralaya which is what a deluge is called in HavyakaHindirsquos barfbarimdashhail stormmdashis Gujaratrsquos hailey Tamil Nadursquos pani mazhai and Urdursquos zaala bari Then we have the oddities Akali paus is unpredictable unseasonable rain that visits Maharashtra in January or February says Martha Bhosale mother to our Sunday team colleague Shravani paus is fickleminded it drizzles one minute and then the sun shines relentlessly but thembthemb paus is back a few hours later Gujaratrsquos vahnik varsaat is convectional rain that falls only in one spot because there is no wind to carry the cloud away just like Punjabrsquos jhaala Mol varsaat that falls in the month of May ruins crops while aadre Kannada which falls at the end of June or July is capricious Winter rains in Jodhpur caused by cyclones are called mavath in Marwari informs Amit Pareek a marketing head at an IT companyThen therersquos the biblical variety Tamil Nadursquos rare fish rain or meen mazhai is caused by tornadic waterspouts that picks up aquatic creatures such as fish and frogs and carries them away for several kilometres Blood rain or chehapairatta mazhai as experienced by Kerala in 2001 is when the water was coloured by airborne spores of a local algae varietyBut as another Sunday midday colleague puts it no matter the type of downpour by August when Mumbai is sick of clothes that donrsquot dry potholes algae that makes you slip and fall any expletive will doWith inputs from Sundari Iyer