And even if you’re in the foreign-est and loneliest of places, you won’t feel it so much on a rainy day. Because such days are pretty much the same no matter where you go. Or maybe because, such days tend to make you kind of stupid and contemplative anyway, in that if you’re at home on a rainy day then you want to be somewhere else, out in the rain, with nothing to stop you from getting wet. But if you’re out there in the rain with nothing stopping you from getting wet, all you want is to be home and dry.
In any case, what I want to say is pretty trivial, and I shall keep it that way - Rainy day memories are mostly eternal and universal. It’s probably been this way forever, but it was only just now that I noticed how I unconsciously equate a wet day with carefully chosen recollections only. I mean, even if there’ve been thousands of rainy days I’ve lived through, I can still count off my fingers the ones I carry around most clearly in my head.
Here are my top recollections. For all I know, they may change tomorrow. But as on 22nd September (Tom Felton's b'day...Bless him), 2 days after I turn 18 (Yippee!!) rainy days remind me of these:
1) A lot of ‘96 and ‘97 rainy days, I have spent on my grandparents’ bed in Amalapuram and Warangal. Hardly napping. Instead, it was on some of such days that I read my first comic, discovered the legendary “Coffee bite” chocolate, listened to their stories, learned that my grandma’s purse was a treasure trove of Vicks Tablets and got used to her snores. This ranks among one of my top rainy day memories – not the stuff I did, nor my grandparents. Just the general ambiance of their room.
2) The classroom with the tub of multi coloured umbrellas in the corner, and the umbrella shopping trips. This was during the years ‘98 – ‘99. In general, nothing beats the awesome-ness of Mumbaiya rains. Also, how I hated coming back in those packed jhunds after school ended, just due to the thought of walking by so close to those dirty, muddy and wet boys of my class.
3) The swarm of earthworms that came out of their holes after every rain in Mumbai (’96, mostly). And how the crazy boy on top of our house went around sprinkling salt on them (he probably didn’t realize he was killing them by doing that), to decide which of them would go to heaven and which of them to hell*. He was also the first boy ever to have been slapped by me :P
4) “The Photograph” – my most favourite Ruskin Bond short story ever!
5) Monkeys, music, coffee and Parul– Indore‘08 :)
6) Endless talks about envying a friend who still gets a chance to enjoy those heavenly downpours in Mumbai even after not living there for around 3 years - August‘09 :P
A pretty lame list, I probably agree. Still, this is how it is with me right now. Someday, I shall possibly be reminded of the day I spent in the forgotten land of Mashobra exchanging life stories with Sherpas, or doing photography in the Amazon forest, or discovering Hogwarts in some architectural ruin
And listen to other people’s own recollections, and trick myself into believing that the most fascinating of those actually happened with me
And learn fully how to work on Linux :-/
* The Heaven-Hell theory is best not disclosed here. The last thing I want is to make this post disgusting [:P]
Cheers.
