Dancing in the rain

            Poets have waxed eloquent about the rain; the ever elusive pot of gold is only at the end of a rainbow. Chasing it is both a challenge and a dream. Romance they say is in the air, cupid showers his arrows in the most unexpected directions, striking many a desolate heart. Even Eliza Doolittle the ‘Fair lady’ was taught English by Professor Higgins, by taking refuge in the rain…only metaphorically: The rain in Spain is falling on the plain. There is always something hugely poetic about the rains. Of course it can inundate, cloud and cause havoc too, but as of now I would like to elucidate on the beauty of the rain.

              Over a period of time the rain has meant different things to me. Sometimes a friend walking along quietly, knowing fully well that’s all you need; sometimes a playful child, urging you to break free and romp in the deluge; sometimes a comforting, overpowering, overwhelming mother, ready to swamp you with her one of a kind selfless love…different avatars of the rain, bring to mind a beautiful, lyrical song, by the Everly brothers, ‘I’ll do my crying in the rain.’ Of how it can sometimes be, your only refuge.

                Monsoon to me is a season of freshness. There are innumerable memories etched in the mind, coalesced as one huge mass and sometimes distinctly stark and clear, several shards laid out on the grass, after the first shower. The earliest memories of rain are from the hills, awash and verdant, surrounding us as we walked in our gumboots to school. Some days we threw caution to the winds and walked barefoot, drenched to the bone, splashing through puddles, knowing fully well what we’d get when we got home…Tiny detours and hugely crazy stuff peppered our school girl sojourns. Of course none of this was indulged in, on the way to school, as it being a missionary school and one of great repute, there was not much that we could get away with. So all of the mindless fun was cleverly reserved for the trip back home and almost all of us, back then, walked to and from school. A huge distance in many cases, but fun nonetheless. (We were lucky to have parents who knew what parenting was all about and didn’t smother us with overtly asphyxiating attention, read love, read possessiveness: obsessiveness).

              Other specks in the kaleidoscope, are of times in the downpour of the plains, which often leads to flooding, quite unlike the hills. A new experience really of wading through waist deep water, getting an out of schedule holiday, as school would be flooded. Sitting for hours on end, cruelly taking pebble shots at the frogs in the seasonal pools, or trying to catch tadpoles in the name of fishing with our handkerchiefs, was a favourite sport. Returning home with glum stories of how tough it was to get back and mom, invariably having a know-all look, when bombarded with our tall tales.

                  But one of the most cherished memories is of my first job in the hills and the rain.

As I stood in my room gazing out of the window, sapped of the smallest shred of energy, I heard the distant rumbling of the clouds. It had been a challenging and hectic day. Shrugging off the urge to lie down, I stepped out into the crisp yet balmy high noon. Perceiving that it would take at least an hour for the black-bellied clouds to pour down, I walked briskly to my favourite green patch near the church: all this, in my most beautiful and scenic getaway in the hills, a small picture postcard town, tucked away from the probing tourists, a remnant of the British Raj, complete with a cemetery, a church and ancient, old world buildings.

                 Finding my little, neat patch, I settled down with a book. However, before I knew it, and before the book had cast its spell on me, the rain came slashing down, increasing from a whimper to a scream, washing away the tiredness from my limbs and satiating the parched patch around me. My fatigue seemed to have dissipated and settled as a puddle around me and the grass I felt smiled and swayed saying, perk up today is our day.

             The grass blades danced with glee as I watched the rain beat down on them…having waited ever so long, struggling in the heat, the blades of grass were more than just receptive. For them it was some kind of a reprieve. The first shower of rain did just that, it seeped into their very being.

               I smiled to myself, drenched to the bone almost knowingly. The calm before the storm I knew, but the balm after a pour was new. I then realized why monsoon was a much awaited time, a time for rejuvenation…and I quietly relived the moment, trapped in time and of a little girl…in that moment was catharsis and a certain déjà vu…