Rains are usually attributed with romance, good weather, going out, cooking delicacies and having fun in the hot Pakistan. And it certainly is all that. I'm sure it's the same elsewhere too. But a mistimed rain may make a farmer anything but happy. While the rest of the population would be enjoying the rain, a farmer would be all tense and praying for it to stop.
It's like batting. Timing is of extreme importance if you want to score big. A rain at
'exquisite' timing, as Ravi Shastri would say, will reap you a lot more just like an exquisitely timed shot by Sachin Tendulkar. And you mistime the shot, in all it's likeliness, either will waste a precious ball or will get you caught out. Similarly, a mistimed rain would either make you loose precious time or even the crop.Recent rains in Pakistan made all the wheat farmers nervous, especially in Punjab. Sindhis have already harvested and sold their produce, so they were relatively safe. What the rain does is that it makes a certain type of fungi grow in the grain portion of the ready to harvest plant, destroying the crop. It delays the harvest too, delaying the next crop cultivation.
I had more reasons to be worried. My canola harvest was not only underway, we had put it in open sun to 'dry', so much for the effort, huh.
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