Tropical depressions moved in and out like trains, pulling their high precipitation, Force 8 winds and immoderate sea states behind them, and they always got a big welcome from me. I spent five years there before the threat of an impending Japanese invasion caused my mother, sister and me to be evacuated to Australia aboard an ageing, ruststreaked tramp steamer (which got under way through light air and a heavy pre-dawn dew) but during that period I experienced thousands of hours of rain and climatic extremes. Naturally I have no conscious recollection of these events but reckon they must have left a mark. The sea state had been moderate, the swell light. Years later, referring to these records, he told me that on the day I was born 2.1 inches fell in the space ofseven hours and twelve minutes it knocked flowers off trees and washed away topsoil our little island was carpeted with fallen blossoms, damp and sweet smelling, the surrounding lagoon darkened by tons ofdeliquescent earth floating in suspension. The weather was thus of more than passing interest to him and, using a calibrated glass rain gauge and a creaking anemometer kept in the hospital garden, he measured and recorded it, noting down items like precipitation, hours of sunshine and wind speed and direction. Several times a week he attended emergency calls by motor boat, often sailing great distances to reach patients in the remoter villages and settlements. The delivery was made by my father, the only doctor for a thousand miles in any direction. It continued during the delivery and for some time after my birth, drumming on the galvanized iron roof, swishing through the heavy foliage outside. It was tropical, the kind that seems to possess a metallic weight and mass, and it began bucketing down as my mother went into labour at a small mission hospital in the South-West Pacific. The first sounds I ever heard were those of falling rain. Alexander Frater's route ■ Normal track of monsoon (eastern and western Arms') Normal dates of monsoon onset. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser and without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or'introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above mentioned publisher of this book. Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcom Avenue, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand First published by Viking 1990 Published in Penguin Books 1991 Reprinted 1991,1992 Copyright © Alexander Prater, 1990 The moral right of the author has been asserted All rights reserved Made and Printed in India by Ananda OfNet Private Ltd. USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria. Penpiin Books India (P) Ud, B4/246, Safdarjang Enclave, New Delhi-110029, India Penguin Books Ltd, Hamondsworth, Middlesex, England Viking Penguin Inc. He is at present chief travel correspondent of the Observer and lives in London with his wife and two children. His journey with the Indian monsoon has been made into a major BBC television travel documentary. Beyond the Blue Horizon, was a bestseller in the U.K. He has contributed to many publications, including Punch and the New Yorker, and his last book. PENGUIN BOOKS CHASING THE MONSOON Alexander Frater was born in the South Pacific island group of Vanuatu, the son of a Scottish medical missionary. In a uenre lhai is ephemeral, this hrnik is likely to survive because ol its brilliance and its insight into how the monsoon makes India.' -Fa.wntk Timei Alexander Frater Aliitgclhcr an endearing liquid discovery of India.
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