Rain, Rain...

It's raining in Madras.

The first drop wasn't my imagination and the second merely insisted that it wasn’t so. My skin takes them in the way a passing stranger would pick up runaway scraps from an overheard argument between the leaves. But when I glance up at the whispering green parliament they fall silent to let the wind speak in their stead.

It's raining in Madras.

Somebody up there has acid-polished the sky to a starless silver tonight, scrubbed it hard till every black cloud disappeared into a wiped retreat. Nothing is left behind but lightning beams that wince thunderously at every blink.

It's raining in Madras.

Penitent winds of a childhood of truant monsoons tramp through the emptied streets, desperately seeking notice in every sheet of paper that flies past long-handed lunges and the surprise flecks of rain that it sprinkles. Nobody looks up in recognition and smacks their lips in a smile that washes away in advance all that post-rain perspiration.

Soon enough it walks off huffily, yet another stranger shunned by the uncaring hordes of my city.

It's raining in Madras.

The rain got me to write my first essay at five “My favourite season is the rainy season” It got me acquainted with the only streets I’ve trudged through, skirts drawn and shoes abandoned to puddle squelched steps, Sunday-sunlight and Kiwi White. To say the only prayers I’ve mouthed- between unbalanced redox equations in the Chemistry class before PT (“Not now. Not now. Please.”)and in the shivering arms of my mother (“Arjuna Arjuna”) when we waited for cyclones to vanish into a dry-cleaned dawn. I’ve fallen short in races thanks to treacherously long raincoats and I’ve waded back home in battered bicycles to hear “scoldings” (where did our absurdly coined Tamilian English words go?) between sneezes.

It's raining in Madras.


The rain and I have no more firsts to exult in or any long-time-no-see pleasantries that friends long lost to each other, exchnge.
If this is not the first rain has kissed my skin, if I’ve never before articulated twenty years of vagrant rains why do I repeat this simple sentence with a sadness that befits a first heartbreak?

Because it's raining in Madras.