Be it in literature or in music, rain and love ....
like salt and pepper, like whiskey and soda are often found intricately
woven together.
Decked up with such images as rows of dark clouds, thunder,
lightning, dancing peacocks, a lone Chakora bird
precariously perching on a branch looking up expectantly for the first drop of
rains, Sanskrit poets have cantillated ethereal romance.
These images are so ingrained in our culture …in our
everything right from music to dance to painting, sculpture…including our films
even … nothing had been spared from their invasion….
Monsoon rains are used by our poets of yore as a symbolic
frame for expressing emotions: emotions of Sringara (the
science of love), Rasa (poetic moods) musical modes (Raagas) so
freely and frequently. Indeed, they “add[ed] colour to my [everyone’s] sunset
sky”. How true! Rains flashed colour on our imaginations …imaginations of bards
as well as brawns alike … made them look bright….
And this is what indeed happened as we stepped out into the
front yard of our office for a brief escape from the monotony of paper and
pencil of the day. Starting as a fuhar …fine spray of tiny
droplets … suddenly turned into rain…. nudging us to dodge from one dripping
tree to another down the lane … and Lo! the giggling and running rekindled
memories of youthful-monsoons past…for their colours remained untarnished with
time…
Walking from gallery to the Horticulture Dept or from Pathology
lab to Chemistry lab under the cumulus and cumulonimbus clouds that are about
to burst again … along the overhanging avenue trees in the college campus…
pulling a twig of the overhead branch … sudden splash of water droplets…
yelling of friends who were caught unaware … gushing away from them …all those
playful days are now a mere sweet memory…
There was a certain uniqueness for rains of those
days… from nowhere a bunch of clouds will assemble overhead all of a sudden and
burst down and in no time drop dead …like a swirling spasmodic abdominal
pain that suddenly wrenches you down with unbearable pain and vanishes
within 10 minutes… and then the sky comes out merrily as though nothing had
happened…
Getting drenched in those intermittent splashdowns was so
common in those days and indeed it was quite amusing too… for there was always
something happening on the roads to marvel at… if only the misty eyes could
catch … …
And press the monsoon button in the mind and their memories
inevitably appear… with colours intact …. That sprig of Chamanti chrysanthemum
flower dropped from the braid of that walking beauty into that fast
forming puddle in the middle of the college lane … …
Evenings of Sravan month … flocks of girls in kanchi silks
on the road … fragrance of yellow Chamantis infused
with davanam (Artemisia pallens) leaves of aromatic herb … walking in
droves… giggling and chirping … silent glances in the creeping-in darkness… a
beginning of romance… that never went anywhere ….
Now the big question is: how true are these memories to what
actually happened? do my roommate and others remember those lazy-walkings under
the drenched trees… in the campus avenues …
those pranks ... that dripping water…? As the time passed, does that leaning
beauty ever think of the Chamanti that dropped into the puddle
from her braid?
Well! Time doesn’t always act as a fixative, rather acts as
a solvent, isn’t it?
Ha! this reminds me of a half-forgotten thought over which
me and my roommate often used to quibble a lot while walking on the railway
track in the dusk: … “it’s not time that is passing but you and me,
right?" …. It’s of course, a different matter that whenever I make such
statements, my roommate used to immediately put me down: “arye yaar
tumbi na… don’t talk about your borrowed ideas…”
But then ... I was so influenced by that shocking scene from
the film, ‘The Cranes Are Flying’, that I saw back home in Venus
picture palace: … after the air ride, Veronica, going back to her apartment
from the bomb-shelter to look for her parents… climbing that beautiful
staircase— on which her boyfriend, Boris used to chase her …. perhaps to catch
his happiness—discovers that her parents have simply disappeared.. … and all
that remaining there in that rubble … in that deadly silence …. is only a
loudly ticking clock on the wall …. perhaps, to say: “Hey! life goes on… … no
matter your parents are … …!”
And yeah, surprisingly this time round, that old thought—
'it’s not time that is passing but U and me' — doesn’t sound glib as it did in
those days … and must be the same today with even my roommate, perhaps!
Oh! we have had
enough… let me wrap up this walk down the monsoon-lanes by recalling what that
fiery Faize in whose poetry romance and politics, sensuous lyricism and passion
… all flow together as a finely blended malt… said: “Chand nikley kisi
janib teri zebai ka / rung badle kisi surat shab-e-tanhai ka” (let the
moon of your beauty rise from some quarter / and change the mood somehow of
this lonely evening) … rainy-day?
…. 
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