Yes, this post is about RAIN – the new rage in blogosphere. You love it or you hate it, but you can’t ignore it.
So it’s been a little over a week that I haven’t posted anything. I have been busy, you see, with the rain increasing my travel time at least by a couple of hours every day; I have little to no time for myself. And that’s why I have been passionately reciting the poem, “Rain, rain go away, come again another day” quite often these days.
But if I look back, I have not been a rain-hater always. I have always loved the smell of the wet soil after the first rain that soothed the scorched earth. Or the little sprout of grass that seemed to grow overnight and the little white grass flower with seven perfectly formed tiny petals. I used to sit for hours on our Gothic Veranda and watch the droplets form and fall from the cornice with a book of Harry Potter in my hand.
◊
If you
grew up in a small town of West Bengal, then probably you too have the same
memory of rain as I do. Days of gloomy sky with a terrible depression lurking
on the Bay of Bengal. I would get up in the morning with the whooshing sound of
wind trapped in the leaves of the mango, guava, coconut and areca nut palm
trees that adorned our backyard along with the rhythmic clatter of water drops
falling hard on the ground. A feeling of joy already building up in me. Yay! It
would be a rainy day. I would make small paper boats and sail them in the
stream of water that flowed in our garden even before I brushed my teeth. The tiny
dewy droplets of water looked pearl like on the soft petals of the flowers and
the fresh clean green leaves danced happily in our garden. Sometimes, just
seldom, my mom would allow us to get drenched in the rain for five minutes if I
promised to take bath immediately after.
Lunch would
invariably be Khichudi made from the fragrant rice and Hilsa fish – both just out
of the stove and smoking hot followed by an afternoon nap wrapped in a Nakshi
Kantha (an embroidered quilt) made by my grandma. An early evening, misty rain and
the power cut almost always called for a session of ghost stories told by my
talented story-teller grandma, who had an endless stock of such stories. My brother
and I listened with rapt attention with endless supplies of chicken pakoda and
steaming coffee. My dad would sometimes come and grab us from behind making us
scream at the capacity of our lungs.
◊
But life has changed. Today I fail to appreciate the beauty of the rain when I drive through the water clogged roads and the potholes on them. I hate when they think the best time to dig up the road is just before the rain starts. I shudder when I catch the glimpse of the kids getting soaked in the rain, not because their mom allowed them for five minutes, but because she does not have a shelter to offer them. I flinch when I see the trash floating in the black water and I hate the damp smell that my clothes catch. I completely detest the rain when there is no power for hours because of some stupid tree that fell on the electric transformers.
Yet when
it is especially windy and the rain is slashing at its hardest casting a
mysterious mist all around, when the rumble of the clouds is the loudest, I can
still find the old me, in love with rains. Ways of having fun in the rains have
changed though. The afternoon horror stories have been replaced by long drives
along the sea shore watching the mad waves. Though Harry Potter remains, the
Gothic Veranda is replaced by an enclosed balcony. Afternoon nap is almost
never there but pakoda and coffee are still very much there. And of course,
Hilsa fish. The boon of this otherwise gloomy season.
◊
Rain is a mixed feeling. I love it, I hate it. I am still deciding which side my balance would tilt.
But till then tell me what you feel about rain. You love it? Hate it? Adore it? Or despise it? What is it with you and rain? Because surely you too cannot ignore it! And maybe your views on rain would help me analyze if I love rain more or hate rain less!Follow me.
