It is high June and it is raining. Again, the rain-winds paid no heed to the poor weatherman’s forecasts and arrived un-invited [but still welcome]. Caught off guard, and not wanting to loose his silly job [of forewarning, forecasting, and foreseeing], the weatherman quickly went to town saying the Monsoon has arrived -- early. They never get it right, do they? Why do we need the weatherman?Rains have been intermittent for the entire last week. I love the sound of ceaseless tapping made by a million tiny rain globs. It is like an ancient aqua dance. Nature is an orchestra conductor with a magical wand-in-hand. An unseen choirmaster to whom the clouds bobble. Winds blow. Plants prance. And heaven’s open up. Like tiny teardrops, which are beautiful, glistening and innocent, rains come.
Longfellow says that the best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain. So it rains. All the world’s umbrellas and parasols, raincoats and rain-shelters cannot stop it. The orchestra continues. The smell of earth after the first rains is raw, sharp and unlike any human scent. It seems to remind us that we are all earth-people with earth-color. Despite our earthy prejudices.
Rain is a temptation, I can hardly resist. I wish it always rains. I like to walk in rain. When it rains on me it cleans up many dusty layers and cuts through the cobwebs. I imagine old chimney’s happily piping up smoke in a distance. I think about a flock of swallows fluttering somewhere in a frenzy, caught up in the rain, looking for some dryness.
I feel like a rain man. When it is dark and cloudy outside, I’m oft transfixed by lightning -- the ferocious signature of God on his palimpsest. In red ink. Like a furious school teacher, signing a poor marks sheet. In red. Cross at us for some archaic reason. Don’t we do our home work well enough?
It is high June and it is raining. On our new development. On flyovers. On Boeing tailfins. On farmhouses. On half-constructed skyscrapers. On mega malls. On metallic eight-way lanes. On high-rise buildings. On cherry color low-rise buses. On flower beds.
It is raining. In-to our old miseries. In large puddles. In the begging bowls of the homeless who have nowhere to go. In desolate alleys. In the plastic tea-cups of construction workers. In the hollow of abandoned beer cans. In the crevices of history.
Mystic summer rain.
Sameer
