Summer Rain..

Rain has always brought me something sweet along with them. Be it summer or monsoon they just make me look up with expectant wide eyes and a smile on my lips. The first time I fell in love with rain was in my village. I guess no one could resist her beauty there. Long green stretches of paddy fields swaying to her rhythm were a spectacle no poet could do justice to. Every year it brought something with it. A fresh academic year, new books, new bags, brown paper covers for the books, stickers with Mickey mouse pictures. It meant a whole new beginning for me.

In college, rains meant you could take your books and go to your rooms. This meant total freedom there in a convent hostel. We need not sit in a single desk, one behind another and pass notes to converse with each other. J That was how our study was..we used to sit around the building in a row, one behind the other and talking was highly impossible, especially for us who were right in front of our matrons room. Rain meant we could go inside our room and obviously that in turn meant we could gossip, eat, look out of the window and comment on all those who come that way.

I was somehow blessed to get hostels with a “nadumuttam” both during Pre-Degree & Degree. Now those who don’t understand the word “nadumuttam” – it is an opening right in the middle of a house or building. Rather the building would be constructed in such a way that there will be a small open ‘playground’ right in the middle. So degree also rains meant, closing all books, trying to reach the rain falling in the ‘nadumuttam’ from your balcony, gasp at the water being splashed to the balcony, tip toe and play with the water puddles that forms there and grumbling at the matron who arranges for the cleaning up of the space pretty quickly!

Post graduation unfortunately did not give any such facilities. There was one vast terrace and the only way we could enjoy the rains were after the rain, we could stroll on the cool terrace.  My journey to Pune & then to Mumbai made me realize how people just celebrate rain there. Even when the water was up till a little below my knees I enjoy the waded walk to my office and the appreciation that none except me had come in the team . It always brought a smile no matter where and what, a friend would remember me after a long time and call for a cup of coffee, it would be declared leave for both our offices and we could cuddle at home, hot vadapav, hot soups, hot coffee..it was a treat for the tummy too.

This summer rain in Bangalore was no different. Thanks to the ‘transit’ foodcourt in Forum the view of the windy rain outside was as pleasant as it could get. If I had no paddy fields, the very sight of vehicles drenched in a new shower was a sight in itself. And it did not forget to bring the smile with it..and this time it stayed with me till the truth sunk in and I was smiling real wide. Yes it brought the news of a new life for me. It brought the smiles of a new life that is budding within me. There isn’t any other way I could imagine I would’ve celebrated this news than that evening with the dancing rain and a cup of coffee and both of us…wondering about the intruder who’ll arrive in no time!