I love the rains – not just the rains, but the accompanying sound and light shows that nature presents during monsoons. How I wish I could just stand outdoors and allow rainwater to soak me to the skin! That would breach some social protocols, wouldn’t it? Does the rain dampen your mood? Or does it make your spirit soar? I asked young and old, orthodox and modern, male and female. Here are some of the answers.
(Names changed) “My heart broke when the monsoon broke,” Radhika recollected. “It’s a long story of love and betrayal, a story that replays again and again in the real world. Only names and faces change. The pain is eternal. The rain reignites it every time.” Raghavan, a poet with a lunatic streak, spoke in riddles, “One drop of water to quench the thirst of a desert,” he began. After saying much, he concluded with a sigh, “It makes me cry.” Was it Charlie Chaplin who said, “I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying”?
“I hate the rains,” Sarah exclaimed, “I always find it depressing. I moved to Chennai after my marriage and felt immensely relieved to be in a dry place.”
Karthik was another pessimist: “The monsoon spells the onset of epidemics such as malaria, dengue fever and chikungunya.” Sudha said, “I was born at the peak of monsoon, on a dark stormy moonless night. My arrival was heralded by a blinding downpour illuminated by occasional flashes of lightning and terrifying bursts of thunder. Perhaps that’s why I feel on top of the world when monsoon breaks.”
She didn’t stop with that. “Zindagi bhar nahin bhoolegi woh barsaat ki raat,” (will never forget in my life that rainy night) she sang with a wistful look in her eyes. Mohammed Rafi’s soul- stirring number brought to mind the gorgeous apparition of Madhubala in the 1960s.
Sudha went on. “That’s how I met my soul-mate. It was a torrid affair that lasted several years. When the storm passed, the song remained. Memories lie hidden in the depths of my soul - and when the rain falls in torrents, they rise up, evoking both joy and melancholy.”
Acclaimed Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho wrote (in Portuguese), “Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with a soaking joy. But sometimes under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive.” “Do not be angry with the rain; it simply does not know how to fall upwards,” wrote Russian author Vladimir Nabokov in a lighter vein.
Frolicking in the Rain
Down the ages poets and writers have waxed eloquent on the romantic splendour of the rains. As for Bollywood, Mollywood and the other namesakes, they have perennially freaked out on rain sequences. Remember Nargis and Raj Kapoor in the immortal number ‘pyar hua ikrar hua’ in Shree 420? Helen in the ‘aaj ki raat’ song in Anamika? The rains look unreal, don’t they? Apparently, the rain-making strategies of the movie industry were far from perfect.
