When Rain's At It's Best...!!!

Being blessed with April rains is a relatively new trend, courtesy Global Warming, but rains have always had an element of unquestionable acceptance about them. Rains are the drizzling reminders that heavens are ceaselessly showering their limitless blessings upon us, and which leave everything on our planet awash and anew. Whatever the time of the day, they drift the soaking souls into a whole new territory, mentally, emotionally and even geographically. No matter where one is, the drift is absolute and instant. Rains are just always welcome.

Be it the 6am shower, when the open windows usher in the most intoxicating incense of the freshly bathed Mother Earth, as if returning after her early dawn’s offerings to the Almighty.

Or the mid-day showers, when nothing on this planet, living or still, seems more beautiful and invigorating than the cheerful laughter of those tiny-tots returning from school, splashed all over with the semi-solidified subcutaneous layer of the earth. Floating paper boats, they are least aware of realizing their privilege of having drapes for their slender silhouettes and least bothered about catching a cold. Even if their mums shout their lungs out (though secretly yearning to be a part of them, then and there)!

Or be it at 4pm with ‘chai’-the ultimate Indian delicacy and steaming hot ‘pakodas’ (shove health, fitness and nutrition in the closet for the moment), the fragrance of mint, garden-fresh coriander, ginger and basil filling the air, as each member of the family recoils to his/her original self, after the hectic day at school, college, office or kitchen, content and aware of the blessings of life and elderly ones.

Or be it at 7pm, when young hearts beat rhythmically with the dribble in the basket-ball court.

Or be it during the pre-midnight hours, when the curtain flutters and brings the slightest drizzle in, as the bed-side lamp emanates its exotic radiance and the aroma of coffee revitalizes the senses and reimburses the emotional quotient as eyes scan and fingers flip through the pages of the latest bestseller by your favourite author.

In or out, now or later, here, there, everywhere, rains have always played the role of ‘soul-cleanser’, carrying one’s spirits into non-dual timelessness. With them around, one of nature’s most unassailable laws – that time just moves forward and never recedes – loses its vitality. It is in the rains that everything: the greens, browns and blues revert to unbridled, fresh childhood! And as it is, it is now that I simply want to break-free, as the kid in me just refuses to grow up, exactly the way it longs to get soaked to the soul!