Rain

Rain has always been associated with happy memories for me. The monsoon were the high point of my years spent in India. We would have just finished off with the first installment of exams. I could afford not to pay much attention to the classes till the work piled up to a point where I could no longer ignore it. It used to be so hard to contain myself to my seat when I could hear the rumbling sky outside my classroom. As if the rains were teasing me for being stuck in the class while it could frolic and play with everyone she met on its way. my eyes would drift to the windows in the classroom form where I could see the houses next to the school. I would feel jealous of all the people in these house who could play outside in the rains while I sat through boring lectures. I would be too distracted to pay any attention to the class. I would be thinking about all the earthworm and beetles coming out of their subterranean hiding place to greet the rains like old friends. They would turn the earth around into teeny balls which me and my friends would then spend hours demolishing.

The first rains would always be the best. After months of seeing dust, sand and grime covering everything, it’s refreshing to be reminded of how green the park in front of my house was. After the first rains the air would smell clean (a luxury in my city). I can still sometimes recall the heady smell of wet earth. Whenever I get a whiff of the smell, I realise that my memory never does justice to it. When at home I would spend hours watching the rain fall. I would drift to my dreams of distant lands. People whom I lost in some distant past. But rains back home were not as frequent enough.

The absolute high point of the monsoons would be when we were allowed to get out and play in the rain. We would go crazy about it. My parents didn’t own a house back then. As a result we used to move around a lot. So I never really had friends in the locality. As I became a teenager the only friend I had was my brother. It was always fun to hang out with him. We guys used to run up to the balcony to get wet in the rain. But it was different from the rains I remember as an eight year old. There was no frenzy about the whole thing. It was more about being quite and content and soak in the ambiance. That was fun too in its own way.

But that was long ago. Now most of my rain memories are time I spent with myself. Its all nice and warm…. well almost. I remember days when I would indulge in reading a nice book with a cup of tea, coffee, cocoa or anything that caught my fancy at that moment. Some days I would indulge in making fancy meals. Like making pasta or biriyani from a scratch with shitty hostel utensils. But the most recent and by far the best memory I have of rain is when I run. I love running in the rain. We have a nice little forest next to the place where I live now. I like going there a once in a while. It’s an absolute delight to feel the rain falling on my face. I love jumping into those small puddles that form even when there is a slight drizzle. It interesting how it never stops raining in the forest. When it is raining you get wet because of the rain itself. When it stops, you feel the drops falling off the leaves of those lush green trees. The best part is that it is very quiet when it rains. I don’t carry my iPod when it rains. The quite of the forest hits me like a cold splash of water on a warm day. There are very few people around. But once in a while I do come across people who have come running just like me, although their incentives may differ. And during these rare occasions we smile at each other. Its like we are all in on the same joke. It’s funny though. The most bizarre bit is when I finish and come across them again; they would actually stop to talk. Most of the times we do not speak the same language and the conversations would comprise of wild hand gestures. But how does that matter. Both of us are so happy that we don’t care much. I rarely see most of these people again. But some of them I do. In some cases we realise that we have been living in the same building for almost half a year yet we never came across each other.

Its amazing how the word rains brings in such an assortment of emotions. All of them memorable in some way....... all special......