The Last Monsoon

In a small village on the banks of the Meghna River, thirteen-year-old Ayaan waited for the monsoon. Every year, the rain brought life back to their cracked fields and filled the ponds where fish would dance under lily pads. But this year, the sky remained stubbornly dry.

His father, a rice farmer like most in the village, would wake early each day to scan the sky. “The clouds are late,” he muttered, again and again. Ayaan didn’t like the worry lines deepening on his father's face. For a boy who loved the smell of wet earth and the drumming of rain on the tin roof, the silence felt unnatural.

It wasn’t always like this. His grandmother often told stories of when the monsoons came early and left behind muddy laughter and swollen rivers. “Back then, we welcomed the floods,” she would chuckle. “The river gave and took, but mostly, it gave.”

Now, climate change was stealing the rhythm of the seasons. The rains were erratic—sometimes too late, sometimes too much. And the village, once lush and green, was slowly turning brown.

Ayaan spent his days helping his mother collect water from the faraway tube well, and his evenings helping his father till the dry land. But one afternoon, he stumbled upon something unexpected in the old mango grove—a group of young students from Dhaka, setting up strange instruments and tents.

Curious, he approached. A young woman in a cotton kurta smiled at him.

“You live here?” she asked, crouching to his level. He nodded.

“I’m Reema. We’re researchers from the university. We’re studying weather patterns and trying to understand the changes in monsoon behavior.”

Ayaan didn’t know what “patterns” meant, but he knew monsoons.

“They’re late,” he said plainly.

Reema laughed gently. “Yes, they are.”

From that day on, Ayaan visited the grove daily. Reema showed him maps, explained how warm ocean temperatures affected rainfall, and how carbon in the air could change the sky.

He didn’t understand it all, but he understood enough: the world was changing, and no one had told the village why.

One day, he asked Reema, “Can we stop it?”

She hesitated. “Maybe not stop. But we can adapt. Plant different crops. Harvest rain. Use solar power.”

The word “adapt” stuck in his mind. That night, he told his father about what he had learned. His father frowned. “How can we change what we’ve always done?”

“But if we don’t,” Ayaan said, “we’ll lose everything.”

The words lingered between them.

Days turned into weeks, and the clouds finally came. But when the monsoon arrived, it wasn’t gentle. A sudden storm swept over the village, ripping roofs, flooding fields, and washing away a part of the riverbank.

Ayaan and his family took shelter in the schoolhouse. From a small window, he watched their field vanish underwater.

The next morning, the village was quiet—broken, but alive.

Reema’s team helped distribute aid. They brought solar lamps and showed villagers how to build simple water filters. Ayaan helped translate between the villagers and the researchers. He became a bridge between two worlds—his dusty village and the big city beyond.

In the months that followed, the village slowly rebuilt. Inspired by the researchers, Ayaan’s father joined a program to learn about flood-resistant crops. The village planted bamboo along the riverbank to reduce erosion. They built a rainwater tank near the school.

Ayaan no longer waited for the monsoon with naïve hope. He knew the rain would come when it pleased, and they had to be ready.

Years later, Ayaan stood again by the river, now a young man. The mango grove was gone, washed away in the flood of ’25, but the lessons had remained. He was studying environmental science at the university in Dhaka, just like Reema once did. On weekends, he returned home to help his father and teach the children in the village about the sky, the sea, and the silent thread that connected them all.

He often remembered that first question he asked Reema: “Can we stop it?”

Now, he had a new answer.

“We can’t stop the rain. But we can learn to dance with it.”

Would you like a version in Bangla or one that includes more historical or cultural elements?