Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The Rain

It was a cloudy Monday evening in Bangalore. After a very hectic day at work, I was sitting relaxed in my cubicle. I managed to peep out of office window, the sky was getting darker & darker. My PC clock was showing 18:30; I called it off for the day & sprinted towards the parking. While entering in the parking area, I realized that I had forgot to fill my daily timesheet! “Who cares” I muttered to myself as I was desperate to reach home safely avoiding the rain & subsequent traffic.

I started my bike & zoomed out on the road, I would have travelled hardly for 5 mins or so & that tragedy happened. I was trying to avoid it very badly. The monsoon had caught me red handed. I was not carrying my Raincoat & had been forced to take a shelter at a road side shop.It was almost 10 minutes, I was standing at that place & there was no sign of rain getting eased out. Unsurprisingly, very soon the Bangalore roads turned up into a pool. Not letting this opportunity go, a gang of street children came & started jumping into that water. The innocent act of those kids made some muddy water sprinkle on my clothes. I couldn’t control my anger & shouted very loudly on them. Scared kids ran away immediately. I didn’t realized why I behave so rudely with them. “Was I any different during my childhood? I also used to play in rain water in front of my house. I still remember how we used to make paper boats & propel them into water.” I went deep down the memory lane, remembering my childhood days, before the fragrance of fresh coffee brought me back on the earth.

There was a Coffee vendor making a hot coffee in the adjacent shop. It was getting almost half an hour now, since I was waiting there. To pass the time, I decided to have a cup of coffee, I ordered one. Hot Coffee tastes even better in the rainy surroundings. “ I can recall my Collage days, when we friends used to sit for hours in collage canteen with a scorching hot coffee cup in hand & watching the rainfall outside.

I still remember ‘that’ day, It was raining like never before. As usual we were sitting in the canteen, when I spotted ‘her’ out in the rain fighting with her umbrella. She was struggling to keep the umbrella in control, with the wind & rain being at their full swing. Ultimately the coalition of wind & rain won the battle as her umbrella broke out. I gauged the opportunity & decided to grab it with both the hands. I jumped off my chair, took one of the umbrella lying around & rushed out. As I was approaching near to her, the scenes of great ‘Pyaar hua Iqrar hua’ from ‘Shri 420’ started running in front of my eyes. I don’t know whether I was looking anywhere near to ‘Raj Kapoor’ but she was definitely looking as sensual as ‘Nargis’ in that completely wet attire. I was about to reach to her & offer an Umbrella but my fate, before I could have done that, she caught up an Auto. The Auto zipped away from my eyesight. The already heavy downpour started feeling heavier as my eye water also got added into that. ”
Many years rolled after all those events & I am quite aged now. I had almost wiped off all those memories from my mind but thanks to this rain today, which returned me my all those cherished days. The clock was ticking to 9:00, the drizzle was still going but I decided to step out. “In last hour or two, I realized that I never disliked the rain, in fact rain had given me some of the best moments of my life then why I was running away & hiding from it?

I felt my heart whispering something into my ears. I heard it very clearly, it said …..

When the sky starts leaking, my heart starts speaking...
It urges me & says, can you recall those days?
When your world was smaller & the joy was taller
You were so eager for the rain, now that never happens again
Why are you so busy? Can't you see the sky is hazy...
Forget all your strain & let all worries drain.
c'mon get out in the rain, you can do it yet again.

& I walked out accepting the rain drops graciously all over my body. I won’t be able to phrase that feeling hence would suggest you all to experience it at least once in a life…