“Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain, for stories it will tell.”
– Anonymous
As the first drops of the rain fall on my cheek while I go about my business lazily, I look up at the sky. Not because I am getting ready for that clichéd Bollywood-style welcoming of rains with a catchy number in the background, but because I first need to check the source. Living in India, if something falls on you from up above, you can never be too sure, what with the massive number of pigeons and crows wandering above us sluggishly, aiming at their next target. But the clouds rumble and I know I am safe.
Essentially though, the signals of the oncoming showers come much before that first drop of rain. There is the weather, those inviting blue skies which make you long to go outside. The waves of clouds that seem like a still life painting but cannot be so because they have a larger-than-life momentum to them. The titillating breeze that hits you, raising the hairs on your arm and raising your heartbeat, making you realize that you are on the threshold of that thunder soon to come. And finally, when that first drop falls on the seething ground, like two lovers meeting for the first time in years – the Earth welcoming the waters in its vast embrace and in turn surrendering to the rainfall sweeping it off its feet. Through the showers – you smell the love. The freshness that you cannot fathom, a scent that makes you smile.
I suppose rains anyway bring a note of hope and comfort in some ways. Everything is all too familiar. Those plip-plops of the raindrops as they come falling out of the heavens, as if God is watering his garden that is the Earth. Then the blooms of mankind blossom, their little legs carrying them outside. The shameless splashing into puddles and feeling those showers on their shoulders ensues. And when they have felt the rains on their cheeks to their heart’s content, back home they go, drenched but delighted. Through the warm scoldings of their mothers and the comfort of the shelter, they listen to the pitter patter of the peltings, still trying to catch the wondrous water through the other side as it comes down.
That was a long time ago. I am now, of course, a distant admirer of the precipitation. I have become wiser. Or maybe lazier. A change of clothes out of my already snug outfit seems a lot of work. Rainfall is just another element in nature to me. Umbrellas have replaced those underage hands now. It is not the clouds that I see when it starts to rain but the cab fare. The legs take me in the opposite direction now, as my eyes look for shelter. I suppose the rain really reflects our turmoil inside more than that outside. To a carefree child it is a far off friend who has come to visit after long. For an adult with arduous responsibilities, just another inconvenience. The sky is now grey instead of blue.
But as I sit by the windowsill, sipping my hot cup of coffee, musing about the workings of the world, I am still tantalized by that fragrance of the long lost lovers meeting. It still arises hopes within me and a smile sinks in. Perhaps I could do without an umbrella for a day, I wonder.
