No. I am not somewhere far away from home, randomly reminiscing about the beautiful monsoons while I look out of the window at the lashing rains on the rooftops and the bewildered dogs on the street. Well, yes and no. Yes, I am away from home and no, I do not have a window here and hence I am not blessed with the sights of rain wrath over the neighborhood. I sit inside a rectangular cabin with wooden partitions for privacy with a fully working AC (sometimes giving you an unfamiliar sensation of a mortuary), a water cooler and a canteen, if you have the energy and will to take a walk of five steps. Whining, in any form is frowned upon here for the same reasons. What are you complaining about, exactly? Everything is so accessible. No tiring walks. No getting wet in rains. No distractions. Complete productivity.
Funnily enough, sometimes, we realize the charm in something after we have lost it. Chennai rains, for me, have always been painful reminders of how everything around you changes except for a tiny sliver that adamantly remains the same.
From 8b classroom, High School Section, Hari Sri Vidya Nidhi School too, you could see rains soaking the houses nearby, their cars and our own captains, running around without a rain coat or an umbrella. Some of the sprays hit my face as I leaned across to get a good look outside. Wishful it seemed to me, that, one would, sometimes, have neither rain coats nor umbrellas to shield you from rain. Enviously, I scowled at them while they playfully punched each other, laughing all wet and drippy.
A seemingly normal mistake of forgetting the umbrella was so unusual for me. Wait, was it really? For me or for my household? I mean, come on, you cram your breakfast, gulp down water, wash up, put on your bag and that's when Amma hands you the umbrella. There's no gap for a disgruntling sigh, let alone, refusal. Once, in my desperation, I went the farthest you can go, in my house, by quickly slipping it back in the rack when she turned away. But she ran behind the car, yelling so loudly even the deaf neighbor grandma heard and looked irritated while I took the umbrella, accepting defeat. Forgetfulness is a rare quality, the 14 year old me, felt that day.
At 3:30pm when the school rang its final bell for the day, however, I stood quietly in the school porch, my umbrella hanging limply by the side, observing the umbrella-less kids go home unheeded and non-guilty. Well, a split second later, I tucked my umbrella neatly inside and wore the expression of a pretentious fussy idiot, cursing herself for forgetting the umbrella and walked ahead.
All the water slushes and muddy piles with fish in them, aside, the best part was when you enter the narrow alley leading right up to my house. The alley was flooded completely and surprisingly with crystal clear water that went up till your knee, with no one but snoring neighbors in every house sleeping their way through the moody afternoon. I stepped into it and felt a shiver down my entire body due to the chilled water and took probably the slowest walk of a lifetime.
However, when I emerged after a while, remotely resembling a sea otter, with wet hair puckered to my face and teeth chattering violently, my sheepish face was met with a pleasant faced man, dad. He opened the car doors for me and I got in. Dad's usually irritating phone calls saved me this time as I could steal the umbrella out from my bag and put it under the car seat.
Fifteen minutes later, when I sat down in a warm and clean pair of clothes with almost dry hair, thanks to the vicious hair drying techniques of my grandmother with the only risk of getting your neck cricked, I couldn't help but think of the half-amused half-confused face of my mother when she heard I forgot the umbrella. Thank God, she did not have time to dwell on it as she was pushed aside by a frivolous and positively alarming grandmother with a huge towel and a soap.
