http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_t_rkJOXnA


Monsoon Mosaic


Every raindrop mirrors myriad images


Schoolchildren learning English in India once routinely recited: “Rain, Rain go away…come again another day…!” Only in recent times have we all come to agree that the old English rhyme is perhaps a little misplaced in this part of the world! In fact we have nursery rhymes in our 16-plus official languages and countless dialects that beg and bribe the rain to arrive, arrive on time, stay, and never go away!

Cowering from the heat of March-April-May, we all agree, every year, that the uncompromising summer has, as usual, overstayed. And with the first signs of rains, there is a pan-Indian sigh of not just relief, but deliverance!

Literally every inhabitant of this sub-continent has a unique relationship with the rains. From politician to street urchin, farmer to factory worker, tourist to taxidriver, all of us encounter the Monsoon in our own way – feeling blessed, cursed, awestruck, miserable, joyous, enlivened, dampened…depending on who you are and where you are at, as they say.

A street child, all of 4 feet tall, solemnly takes his position under the awning of the chai-stall, armed with a long pole. For a few rupees and a couple of cups of sweet tea, he will step forth every half hour and push at the plastic sheet overhead to let the accumulating rainwater drain out on all sides, shouting a warning to customers to step out of the way. He takes his job seriously, prodding the sheet at strategic spots, so the water doesn’t get a chance to turn into an overhead puddle. For fun, he’ll try calling out his warning cry in different voices.

A farmer, his eyes fatigued with scanning the horizon anxiously, greets the rain with the kind of humble reverence reserved for the gods – he bows and gets to work, grateful that his fields will go green.

Bewildered street dogs, soaked to the bone, wander about looking for a dry spot – under a building staircase, in the corner of a temple porch, sometimes finding kindness even inside a pavement dweller’s lean-to.

The more nimble and savvy cat, not one to hang around waiting for an act of human kindness, finds its way to dry and warm spots tucked away in places the dog can never reach: above the electricity meter box of a building, in the backseat of a derelict car at a motor mechanic’s, in the covered balcony of an unsuspecting householder.

The old woman feels the rain in her bones – an intimation of my mortality, she says with a chuckle as she watches rain on the pane, and enjoys the crunch of a bhajia that her grandson fries.

Grown-ups try to stay as dry as possible under umbrellas and raincoats, stepping carefully over puddles, while schoolchildren unbutton their raincoats and step purposefully into every puddle, the minute they’re out of sight of their homes.

The industrious home-maker wraps everything that she can in cling-film, to protect it from the dread fungus that the moist air engenders. Only family and pets are spared.

A priest runs gracefully in his white robes from the church to the school building, managing to stay dry – and the awed whisper goes around the school – he doesn’t get wet because he knows how to run in between the rain drops.

The road bully roars past in his big vehicle, taking unholy delight at the wall of muddy water that he creates, leaving behind yelling, rude-gesturing pedestrians and small cars.

The Umbrella Monster licks its lips in anticipation of all those left-behind brollies he’ll have for breakfast lunch and dinner. (That’s where all lost umbrellas go, didn’t you know?)

The plastic slipper maker is suddenly king. The snobbery of leather takes a temporary beating, as the multitudes, even the fashion-conscious, go in for PVC and foam and plastic and rubber footwear that manfully refuses to drink up any water.

The coiffured, chauffeured lady stranded in her car, waiting for traffic to inch along, shares a smile with the pavement dweller collecting water in buckets, tins, big plastic bags.

The weather man consults his Thesaurus to find as many different ways to make a forecast – so that he’s home and dry even when the Rains perversely prove him wrong.

The musician tunes his instruments to ragas that have waited quietly all year to be sung and played. A dazzling array of Malhars now echoes every nuance of the Monsoon – from drizzle to downpour.