Season or Sensation?
The rains are a season for some and a sensation for others. Its distinct sights, sounds, and smells have engendered melodies and melodrama, poets and passion, feelings and felicity. So, to write something on it is a daunting task, for sure.
Instead, let me share with you some incidents and anecdotes, personal and otherwise, about this extensively experienced and effusively expressed seasonal condition.
Romancing the Rain…
It was a day during my college years. It rained religiously but there was nothing extraordinary about it. Only when I was about to leave the campus did I realise that it wouldn’t turn out to be a regular rainy-day return. There was feet-dipping water inside. Outside loomed a pool that threatened to drown the waist of a five-foot-some-inch person like me.
OCD hadn’t overtaken me until that point in my life, and so I plunged into the proposition that lay ahead. Honestly, it was the provocation of a bunch of thrilled buddies who made it look immensely exciting. That day, as we waded through the mucky water, holding hands and balancing our bags and bodies, we laughed, unrestrained and unsteady.
It seemed as if we poured out our hearts as the firmament opened up to pour out its soul. I can still remember with vividness the insanity that overtook us and the sensational songs that accompanied it. Not a single monsoon passes without us, the college mates, reliving that late afternoon in some form or the other. Mostly a discreet mention of it since now, as parents, we dare not replicate it!
Raining Buckets!
To spice things up a little further, let me tell you about an incident that happened to a close friend recently. She had been taking dating a tad seriously for a couple of months. Then the incident that took place supposedly marked the perfect finish line to her quest.
She had met a person through a dating app, and with commonalities to foster the relationship, she had already met him three times. It was her fourth date. They decided to go on a rather long drive on a relentlessly rainy evening. I would have preferred an aromatic ginger tea and an Alice Munro book for that weather. (But to each her own.)
Music mellowed the mood, and after a while of driving around, they decided to park the car for a while. (To get a little mushy, I suppose.) Time ticked by, and the rain had also relaxed somewhat. Then suddenly, almost like a cloudburst, a heavy downpour pulled them out of themselves and pushed them into the view up front.
Before they could react, they looked up, and coming down was another bucket of garbage-filled, dirty water. It was accompanied by a litany of curses by an elderly uncle, who stood on the verandah of his house, under which the car was parked. His graceful acts were peppered with his disdain for the present generation’s lack of care and ‘culture’.
Some laughs the two shared that day before instantly igniting the engine and pushing off. And every time my friend narrates the escapade, we are left in stitches just imagining the rain that spewed down on them that day!
Wet or Warm…Glee or Gloom?
On a completely different note, on a rainy afternoon adorned by short spells of showers, I made a video. I had sent it to my brother, who lives in Virginia, and he had forwarded it to his neighbour and companion. In response, the man messaged him, saying that he would love to get wet in “the warm rain” someday.
To clarify that, let me tell you that this sixty-something friend of my brother is an American who has never visited the tropics in his life. All that he knows about monsoons is that its wet, but possibly cold and disagreeable to a certain extent.
I simply loved the warmth that he associated with the wetness. I also acknowledged the unique perspective that each of us has on every single phenomenon. I hope he makes it here soon to enjoy the balmy weather and tepid rain, an inviting aspect of Kolkata.
“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.” – Bob Marley
For a person like me, the monsoon can mean a riotous rendezvous with fried food. Fritters and papadam are my absolute favourites to go along with flavoured teas and concocted coffees. A plateful of steaming ‘khichdi’ with a generous dollop of ‘ghee’ is a culinary comfort. But then the Indian-Chinese cuisine, with its grease and gusto, can hardly take a back seat.
Though I can barely claim to be a rain lover and post pictures with the hashtag ‘DancingInTheRain’, I do have a fondness for it. I love the feel of the raindrops on me and can connect to the various cadences with which they fall. Clearly, music and melodrama become more fulfilling engagements during the monsoon, but sometimes simply staring at the rain is a sublime sustenance in itself.
By Promita Banerjee Nag
An avid word enthusiast and content-churner, Promita is fuelled by novel writings, ideas and light-hearted banter. A teacher by passion, she treads the path of unequivocal learning with and through her students. Mother, music and ‘mishti’ mostly convince her. If you wish for a tête-à-tête, feel free to reach out to her at promita033@gmail.com.
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