Summer Rain

Growing up in Kerala, my friends and I had an inborn affinity for rain. Come monsoon, come unexpected, we'd always glory in the smell of deep red earth and green, wet leaves after a bout of rain. I am no different in Bangalore. I yearn for rain most days with a hope that belies summer sunshine.

Living on a relatively green campus, I've come to cherish rains, especially summer rains. Not just because they cool the earth and settle the ever-increasing dust, but because they are unexpected, akin to hope - manna to a hungry soul, water to a parched desert-wanderer.

This year, we have had a dry, dusty, hot summer, until now. The days have been sweltering, the nights unbearably hot and impossible to pass without fans in the plural. But now, all that is past. Unexpectedly, delightfully, we have had a rain - and what a rain it is! A cyclone in a low pressure belt couldn't have produced better rain, and for a few moments, hidden safely in the cocoon of our rooms, we thought it truly was a cyclone.

It swirls around trees and sways and shakes them like a man would a puppet. It swooshes and spins around and under eaves, balconies and umbrellas like a banshee wailing and flying in the wind. One can almost see a white line of wind through the sleet of rain, and if you wanted to walk about in it, you'd think it was hail; it's so sharp!

I love watching the trees dance haphazardly in the rain. There is some inhuman frenzy of gladness in it. When this is over - and I can hear it yet, beating down on my windows; distant rolls of thunder promising unceasing rain - there will be a small debris of fallen leaves, perhaps a tree or two ripped apart, a few chilblains and fevers and many muddy shoes. But there will also be a clean world, green and wet and dancing heart-glad - and would you not give anything for that?!