I like the sound of
pitter patter. Rabindranath Tagore called it "tapur-tupur". Raveena
Tandon sang "tip-tip barsa pani". You can choose your own words.
Like, rain is falling chama cham cham... actually this is clearly an understatement in Gujarat right now. Raining cats and dogs, if this expression can cover all the cats and dogs of the world.
Like, rain is falling chama cham cham... actually this is clearly an understatement in Gujarat right now. Raining cats and dogs, if this expression can cover all the cats and dogs of the world.
3 years ago, before
joining the college, I had asked a family friend, who had been studying here
then, to describe Surat. She had said “it rains all the time”. I had shamelessly
displayed all my incisors in ecstasy. Rains, I love.
It brings out the
lazy, the foodie and the romantic in me. There’s the cool
breeze that splashes the raindrops on your
face. My lush green campus becomes oh so green! I lie in my bed all day long,
cuddle with my pillow, imagining I’m on a bike ride and he stops to buy me a
hot bhutta. Mushy daydreams aside,
rains give me a craving for bhajiye and chai. There were
days when I used to dance in rains. Whatever happened to that, I wonder? My nanaji’s
anecdote pops into my mind. When he was young, whenever it rained, the school
would be dismissed. I mean, isn’t that AWEsome!!
And this time the
heavens poured just a couple of hours before my exams. And boy, did they pour!
They had to actually announce that the exams have been postponed. I wake up
because of the blaring noise that the public announcement system is, and I find
my batch-mates dancing like peacocks. What a sight (And we are a bunch of
clumsy gals). While panic was about to strike the city, a new lease of life was
awarded to us students.
Then came the awkward
moment when no one really knew what to do with this sudden freedom. And was it
freedom indeed? I mean, we all knew we can shift+delete all the mugging. We can
sleep. We can dance. We can yell. We can
do all that pleases us, within the threshold of the hostel. So this is going to
be like stranded
in the safe, albeit boring havens of H-12, the quintessential girls’ hostel.
And stranded we are.
We have all the food, the water, the wifi- the basic necessities of everyday, mundane
life. We can hop about, like a frog. We can go to each others’ rooms, to
download into our external storage devices, the movies they have and we don’t have.
We can listen to the radio; they are playing some of the sexiest songs of the
90’s. We can (as advised by our grey eminences and ignored by us all) utilise
this time to study some more.
I, on my part, have
been doing all this with a new found gusto. I am reading Agatha Christies. I’m
day-dreaming big time. I’m eating all the biscuits and dry fruits I could hoard
in this time of emergency. I’m listening
to my favourite rain-song “Saawan barse tarse dil...♥”. I’m liking and
commenting on facebook updates and uploads. I’m talking to my ma round the
clock to know how much water has Ahmedabad received. I’m convincing my papa I’ll
step carefully on the glazed tiles and through the water puddles and not
slip/skid/fall like I’m prone to.
Then there’s the
municipality’s praise-worthy feats of cleaning and recovery that one hears
about. There are also many crusades my fellow comrades are pursuing in an
attempt to live their own version of Prison
Break (read
once again our safe havens of H-12J) I, myself, am
thoroughly enjoying my days in the VIP cell: P
I would like to sign
off now, with the hope that the rains will come to a stop and sunshine once
again spread in our lives (literally as well as figuratively). Meanwhile, I
advise all to list and listen to their favourite rain songs. J
