It's been a couple of months since that season of rain and that to in the summer.Hell,it's been autumn since then.Dried.Yellow.Mellowed.
A dry,heavy scent in the breeze
Making it hard for one to breathe.
It's autumn since that storm of the summer.The storm that had a dim rainbow in the end.The storm of passionate rain.I am reminded of it constantly.It was a whole new experience.Definitely a different one. Unique in it's unspoken ways.That is the reason why I am so articulately reminded of it.
Personally, I love the rain.I simply love everything about it.The rumbling of thunder through the sky.The merging of full,heavy clouds with each other.The string of raindrops that fall like pearls from Heaven.The sound of their pitter-patter liquid of hope as they gently touch the ground.The feel of that purity on your skin comes along with a sense of freshness and relief.I love the smell of water touching grass.It's like a soft ,lingering smell.completely breathable and pure.I can smell it while I type.
I lived my life in a deserted sandy cove.Sunny and chilly are the only two experiences that I have known.The rain that came after so surprisingly and yet so smoothly still baffles me now.But when I look back now, I am not surprised as to what I did.It was by my own choice of thought.
I welcomed the rain with wide outstretched arms.
Like who wouldn't.Anyone in their sanest of practical minds wouldn't but I was neither.I was like a tiny plant in the midst of a harsh desert with an undiscovered oasis miles away.I was thirsty and I think I wanted to quench that thirst that had accumulated over the years and so I let it soak me and free my spirit of it's dryness.
I still remember clearly the purity of it all when it touched the first layers of skin,soaking me and everything around.I remember the feeling of engulfment from deep within and a sense of an unspoken overwhelming passion wash over me.
I felt like a cherry blossoming in the season.All full and ripe.
First it was slow.Soft and calm.But then there came a breeze.A slight one initially.By now the clouds had grown closer and had drawn the shades on the sun.It had grown dark and I could have sworn that I had seen stars.It felt like heaven nonetheless.
The rain came everyday.Bigger,sweeter and more breezier.It came and swept me off my feet.I allowed myself to sway in its melancholy rhythm.I initially used an umbrella to not fall prey to an illness.But the more I tried to cover myself up,interiorly I wanted to let go and I did in the end.I stopped using cover.Unafraid, I let it drench me.
I shivered.Got scared.Felt numb.Fell sick also but I loved every inch of rain that fell hitherto.I thanked the heavens for draining their love on me.It poured like this for a few weeks and a couple of months.I used to tell myself that someday the rain would stop and it would all be back to normal again.I tried to mentally prepare myself but my heart wouldn't allow it.
Every minute of every night turned into worrying doubts about whether I would be greeted by a chilled drizzle or a warm ray the next day.What I feared most happened.I had become dependant on it now.
I sensed it in the air before it came like a deafening calm just before the storm.I was dreading it since long and now it was here.Legally uninvited.It was hauntingly quiet when there was one last round of thunder and a heavy downpour before it all ended.This time the raindrops didn't feel like pearls.They more or less felt like pieces of shattered clear glass falling, cutting through the delicate parts of the skin that had welcomed it and so lovingly embraced it.
I cried in the rain.Openly and unashamed.I felt like a fool to have thought that it would last forever.My summer of rain. It had fooled me and I had allowed myself to be fooled.
I remember these lines from the series 'How I met your Mother' where Lily talks about a wandering urge to find what she really is meant to do in her life.The lines are as follows,
"There are certain things in life where you know its a mistake but you don't really know it's a mistake because the only way to know that it really is a mistake is to make that mistake and go," Yup, that was a mistake."So,really the mistake would be to not make that mistake because then you'll go about your life not knowing whether it was a mistake or not."
And here's the thing about mistakes.Sometimes even when you know something's a mistake, you gotta make it anyway.My memories of the Summer Rain are like little dewy pellets on everything that had been exposed to the rain, myself included.
Its hard to come to terms with what has happened in Mumbai. I set out to write a poem for the innocent but I couldn't. If only words could satisfy grief.
