4.9.11

Susan asked me to. (Sort of.)




10:25 susan: trisha do you want to contribute something to our journal
10:26 please please?
 me: dyou want to take something from my blog?
10:27 susan: wouldnt you rather write something new to be published?
 me: nope.
 susan: its coming out end of this month
 me: aaargh. if i think of something i'll send it in then.
 susan: write about the rain
10:28 its been raining like mad in the nights
 me: im not going to write about the rain.
  i'm asleep at night.

susan: same here

  
  i keep missing it
 me: hahaha
 susan: and in the morning its fucking wet and everyone's talking about it
  perplexing.


They say it rains at night.

Dark clouds rolling their way through darker skies, splitting apart, ripped apart, by shreds of silver stark lightening, tidal waves broken into teardrop fragments crashing their way to the dusty bowels of concrete cities, winds by the thousand churning the still and murky air.

And inside, tucked away in tiny walled boxes, you sleep. You sleep, with sweat trickling down the end of your nose, down the crevices of your neck, forming patterns around your damp hair on your bricked pillows, and you toss and turn uncomfortably.

What passes through your mind? Glimmers of unread tutorial readings, perhaps. Or the knowledge that the next day's going to be as hot as the day that has just shrivelled up and died: as hot as hell, basically. Either way, you lie there, half asleep and half awake, not hearing the welcome sound of rain lashing and whipping the walls and pavements, invisible even to the unlit street lamp that never works, the one that stands just outside the temple where they start singing in unbearable brash voices at six in the morning.

Strange how you don't hear the rain, but you hear that music (a word used loosely) and the ringing of the bells and you crack open an eye, knowing you still have an hour to sprawl ungracefully on your filthy sheets before being late to class.

And then, finally, when you step outside in a valiant attempt to tolerate a new day: the sun. It shines, it shines, it shines, and your head hurts, and water starts trickling its way down your neck and it's not because you didn't dry yourself properly after your bath.

The ground is ever so slightly damp though the steamy morning will soon dry it out, and later, at college, while you're sitting in the library, Dhruv plonks himself down next to you and describes to you, loudly and unabashedly (and you thought libraries were supposed to be quiet), how hard it rained last night and how cool and refreshing it was, and how he sat watching the rain thinking thoughts appropriate to a third year student of literature (green tea versus peppermint, though he will lie about this if you ask).

You're still thinking about rain as you cycle your way home and perhaps this is why, when you hear a faint rumble and the air suddenly cools for the split half of a second, your heart leaps in a way that portends cardiac arrest in the future, and the corners of your mouth prepare to turn upwards to form a rusty smile.Perhaps things are beginning to look up.

But no. The rumble was a bus that just thundered past you, forcing your cycle into the gutter, and the coolness was because you passed the metro station and a smear of air conditioning had escaped onto the street.

Heart settles back into place, corners of your mouth turn down again, and as you lie awake later that night, waiting for the rain that does not come, you comfort yourself with the thought that winter will have to arrive eventually, conveniently forgetting the frozen, smoggy months spent shivering under two duvets and layers of thermal underwear and a monkey cap (if Bengali).

Lesson learnt: if not in possession of air-conditioning or heaters (specific to context), the only thing that's going to see you through life is that old cliche, a bad memory.





Note: The day after this post was written, it rained and rained and rained, and the weather is currently all things wonderful. You just can't catch a break sometimes.


1 comment:

Rheu Dubey said...

if i could 'like' a blogpost. Id like this.