wet wet wet....

“saagar se utha badal bankar

Badal se gira jal ho kar ke

Phir nehar bana …nadiyan gahari

Tere bhinna prakar…tu ek hi hein”

I woke up today to amma’s call reminding me that it was nearly seven ; had to struggle and dragg me out of the warmth of my blanket. Why can’t every day be a Saturday?

In another forty minutes I was stepped out of the gate for my morning walk to the bus stop in Domlur – on my way to work!

I was welcomed by a cold breeze and a tiny drop that fell from the leaves of the huge Gulmohar tree which covered most of the street. It landed on the tip of my nose, rested a couple of seconds before flowing down to my cheeks! I looked up at the huge tree. We have now celebrated three summers, monsoon and winter together. It looked as gigantic and beautiful as ever. In the full bloom at spring-summer time, I was welcomed daily with a red carpet of its flowers on the road. And now the lady looked equally stunning with the tiny crystals of water dropping down from every leaf, every branch. The slight drizzle had now turned into a small shower.

“It’s a beautiful day” – I sang to myself. The usually dusty and smoke filled air felt clean, fresh. I had to go to a corporate jungle which expected me to be neatly dressed and not dripping wet when I walk in or I would never have taken out my umbrella. Making sure that the speeding cars and bikes don’t soak me wet with the dirty puddle water I walked down the narrow lane which connects my house to the old airport road. The street is usually buzzing busy when I walk past it – but today I could just see people who had taken shelter on small shops on either sides of the road. The government school playground was empty. The kids were playing on the verandah instead. The vegetable sellers daughter was wise enough not to draw a kolam today or may be it had already got washed away. The flower lady had taken leave so I missed the smell of jasmine. Two kids late for school came running. They were enjoying the rain , singing, running barefoot ,without the protection of the umbrella – unlike a sophisticated software engineer. Before I realized it one kid jumped right into the middle of a puddle splashing the water around. The street vendor who stood on the pavement yelled as he rubbed the brown stain from his white dhoti. I smiled to myself and appreciated my common sense to wear brown today!

It’s a photographers delight and a writers motivation – a rainy day.

I love rains. My mallu roots should explain that. The sound of tiny drops of water landing on the trees around and on the roof tile has a rhythm and music of its own. The sight of a moss filled brick wall; to sit on the bay window of my house and watch people walking around holding to their brand new black “poppy kuda”; sipping a hot cup of tea- reading a book–aah I miss Kerala like hell. The rains there are not the small showers that we see here. Once it starts raining it pours and pours for days together nonstop. The first showers fill up the road in front of Thampanur railway station and the dirty knee deep water welcomes anyone who hops off @ Trivandrum central! :D

Its even more enticing to watch the rain pouring down onto the backwaters which are mostly lined with coconut trees on either sides. If you are lucky enough as I am you would have an ancestral house of your mom or dad in a village. J

As much as I love rains, I love greenery too. the villages are greener and cleaner than the main cities. On a typical rainy day there would be a few old fellas discussing “kaalavarsham and idavappathi” in the local tea shop. There would be one or two workers on the paddy fields trying to divert the water from flooding the fields. The only sounds you would hear when you walk down the untarred roads would be of your own footsteps ,crickets and the rain! The rubber estates would add to the darkness created by an already cloudy sky. The cattle would all be inside the thatched shelter and not running around through the estate. It’s all lovely memories , scenes that I have seen in my numerous trips to odanavattom ( my dads home town ) and adoor ( which is moms home town).

My bus arrived 10 minutes late to office, but I felt like just sitting inside and humming a familiar sonu nigam song to the “mungaru male” watching the rainy scenes flow by…..

PS: the poem in the beginning is from my KV diary. I forgot the name of the poem and the poet but he is describing that everything is god’s creation and he resides in all.

Of course! God only can create something so magical and beautiful as the rains!