We thought we had an early monsoon when it suddenly started drizzling by early May this year. It is customary to have the first monsoon shower on school re-opening day. Many a times we have been surprised to see the first rain of the season shift according to school re-opening date :) After the fake sign in early May, the weather was warm again for the rest of the month.
Little Manu did not have to take trouble wearing his rain gear on the first week to school. Wasn’t he happy! His question about ‘why we need to go to school’ is still open; I thought that would have got answered with his exposure in lower KG. ‘The teacher says ship runs in water, car and bus are vehicles with four wheels and that lion is a wild animal. Isn’t this stuff I already know? Why should I be made to put on uniform and carry a set of books; see my mom takes all the trouble to pack food for me, get me up & ready every morning. And if at all there are new things that I need to learn, won’t I be able to follow these being read out to me by Amma or Acha? And if you don’t know, isn’t Wikipedia always there!!’ Well, this is the latest monsoon aide memoire added to my list.
Monsoon brings in reminiscences galore. For the romantic in me, these breezy soft-lit days with rain drops in the background bring in a stream of good thoughts, fond memories and a certain lightness that makes me wonder what other weather has such a beauty. [psst.. all this enjoyment is when rain doesn’t hopelessly affect any critical outdoor plan or need.] The many vacations I have spent at Vaikom, the long walks from British Library to home, the city drives we went on only to enjoy the rain, the brisk walk at Brigade road at Bangalore when all other pedestrians ran for shelter (that was a rare chance to walk on Brigade road at 7:30 PM without hustling thru crowd :P) and most of my first literary attempts have been in the list for long.
I loved those nights when it drizzled. My room at ‘Thooprath’, our ancestral home @ Vaikom, overlooked a river. Both the windows gave me a good view of the river winding past our home. Through the window beside my bed, I could hear the fishermen in little boats and see their dim lanterns create sparkle in the ripples. A week at Vaikom every year was just right to rejuvenate my spirit. Every vacation I would take couple of books to read and ended up finishing hardly half the pages, since almost every night I used to get lost with the beauty of the place and freshness of its weather. The ancestral home that I loved so much is not there anymore, we had to demolish the 150+ year old beautiful tiled house to avoid risk from structural damage. That house had a cellar, a wooden attic and a big wood paneled grain storage. That is the only place where I had seen little bats regularly visit a house :) The demolition was painful to anyone who has been there – the whole of my mom’s family and a whole lot of her cousins (about 30 of them) who had stayed there for their studies. My grandpa valued education so much that he brought home all his nephews and nieces to make sure everyone had a decent education and were equipped to procure a job. The house stood for a lot of things than just being an ancestral home for a big family. Now you know why I chose to inherit that name for our new home. Those from Vaikom and Pala who have visited us so far have said they were proud that I chose that name. Well, our local postman still thinks it’s a bad decision – he asked me why I could not choose any modern name, when there are so many and when these are so popular and common. I replied ‘that’s exactly why’.
My walks from British Library to home every weekend were completely devoted for self – most of the times an interesting book or an interesting conversation at the library would have triggered a series of thoughts. One fine day, when it was raining cats and dogs, I thought I was a lone pedestrian when out of the blue, Gopalakrishnan Uncle (Krishna's dad) ‘confronted’ me. He advised me to get a rick and get home quick; I assured him I will. As soon as he was out of sight, I forgot all about it and continued walking :P Amma ‘greeted’ me at the door saying Uncle had called half an hr back asking whether I am home :) Uncle's favorite hobby used to be getting ‘fed up’ at the sight of me ‘picking rice grains like a sparrow’ whenever I had lunch at their place (which was almost once a week since Krishna and I would decide to do combined study and then get out for a movie – for which Uncle would again get concerned that we will be late and help us get to the cinema on time). All this fun was 17 years back; he still speaks to me with the same concern, but it’s now mostly about Manu not having enough and all food :D :D
That walk on Brigade road was the dreamiest I have ever had. Having an umbrella would have hardly helped – so not having one made no difference! Pedestrians had all lined up below shop roofs along both sides of the road and we walked briskly in the rain, about a km and a half to get to our car at the flooded parking space. It was lady luck who saw us home – was it driving through the flood or floating? I only remember we never went above 15 km/hr. Getting home and heading straight to the shower has never been more romantic :D
Most of my first literary attempts had the backdrop of rain. I loved my (north) windowsill at ‘Swathi’ where I could sit comfortably with my legs stretched and back supported and write thru the night. The thought of my early creations makes me nostalgic about the regular letters I wrote to and received from Sanjeevaappooppa, Vaikathachan and Ramanvaliachan. This trio ignited in me a passion to keep trying, to do better; they made me feel there are more people wishing me success than the few I knew by default. I lost touch with Sanjeevaappoppa many years back; my letters returned unanswered. The other two are no more. I have not yet been able to gather courage to call up his family after Ramanvaliachan’s demise 2 weeks back. His safe holds a file with letters from me arranged in chronological order – dated from 1982. I have heard that he used to proudly show these to visitors and read these out to them, branding me a ‘different thinker’. May be I was at an early age – now I have gotten normal :D The best piece from me ever has been the one I wrote about Vaikathachan – I wrote it for an essay question from my language exam in std 11, on ‘an unforgettable incident in your life’. My teacher detached those pages from my answer sheet and gave a copy to the school magazine for publishing. My mom who happened to see the answer sheet later on my table and took copies of it and sent it to every cousin she knew. A week later I was answering calls - not knowing how I should respond to all those aunts and uncles who were visibly moved.
I feel now that I have lost the ability which I may have had ; perhaps I went with the default flow of life a little too quickly than I should have. Now that I have, I should let the current take me as close to where I prefer to be.
The relief is that every monsoon tells me I have not lost the ‘lightness of being’ yet :)
