I wonder if it's all in a name!

I don't know why I'm writing this post. I'm not even in a writing space in my head anyway and yet here I am, writing. Either you're writing or you're not. Either way, you have to decide to do it completely. I'm not ready to stop writing, so I decided to do the next best thing, write. It was a long day, very long. Right from hanging out with my sister to meeting with two beautiful kids! My day was good and then getting drenched in the rain was sheer perfectness!


See, I have this strange connection I feel to various inanimate objects like books, my toys, my comics and the rain. Every time I feel the drops of water touch my face, I feel wonderful, fresh, cleansed, I feel full of joy. Nostalgia kicks in, what is so sad about the rains is also the part that I find comfort in. The being a kid, sailing a paper boat, sitting on my porch on my tiny chair and then waiting for the right moment before I run into the rains and my family would keep laughing about the craziness that I was. I miss being this.

The rains have always been special to me, the rains are like an extended metaphor to my life really. It's like they say 'What you like most almost always also ends up making you the weakest.' The same rain that made my garden green and pristine washed away a few hundred trees.That doesn't mean I don't like the rains, I still do.  The sound of rains, the aroma emanating from my garden, stringlets of water quietly making their way on my window pane, sometimes the lashing of water on the same glass, the slush, the huge puddle, the hot coffee in my hand are what comes to my mind.Me being drenched in the rain. Soaking from the sheer bliss that it the monsoons.

Movies and books may take too much credit a lot of how we see our lives and our expectations; they may have taken in upon them to tell us how to feel about rains and many may agree to it as well! but in my case I am not giving any credit to Movies or books, what I feel when it rains is beyond words; a certain upliftment if you will. I feel like my mind clears up almost instantaneously. When I am drenched in the rain, no other thought crosses my mind other than the pure happiness that I feel. When that freezing water touches my face or when I have to keep my eyes shut because the rain is getting in my eyes, there is a beautiful feeling. The devil may care. I could seize to exist at this very moment and it wouln't matter moment.

I love the rains, I have never owned an umbrella. I've never voluntarily worn a jacket. I've chosen to walk out in the rains only because I needed that time off. The rains put a snooze button on all my thoughts. I think everyone should have something like that. I wonder if my family could see this about me or if it was just as a consequence them calling me 'Meghana' that I feel this way about rains.


Almost every birthday, I get told the story of the day I was born. My birthday hasn't been the same in the last couple of years, but I still go back to this story. It's makes me feel wonderful. So, the day I was born on July 31 was the heart of the monsoons, I am the youngest in the family, so everybody in the family was waiting in anticipation to see who the kid in the family would be. It poured the day I was born. Inspite of which, everyone came to the hospital to see me. Drenched. Most of them wouldn't give it that much of thought, I'm pretty sure my family doesn't really think they did something out of this world. But for me the idea that people dropped everything, braved a rain and came to see me is a pretty happy thought to have. The idea to call me 'Meghana' was one of my grandad's. He thought that I'm the girl who brought the rains! Meghana means rains, Megha means clouds. My family couldn't settle for me to be called the clouds after how berserk the rains went! The monsoons arrived with this baby girl. The monsoons are also what I love.

When I step into the rains, I think of how it must have been for the family who came to see me that day! Suddenly the rains fill me with warmth. The rains make me feel loved. The rains make me feel worth it. Rains make me emotional. They make me feel like it's all ok because the rains are a reminder that whether I think people are there for me or not, they've always been there. The rains are not just rains. They trigger happiness. They make me feel light and liberated.

The rains and the coming back.

It rained! and I always love when it does. Everything looks washed clean and full of life. A rain is all it took for me to comeback from this dry spell I've been having (writing wise, on this blog). It rained and it rained too loudly for you to even get your thoughts in place. It was windy, the patter of the rain on the windows was making it difficult for me to even look out.

The rains are here, the rains bring respite, the rains bring hope. The dry summer heat has filled me (and everyone) with irritation, anger, a certain desperation and with the downpour today it looked like the wind and rain had taken all that away.

It started pouring at about 6 in the evening, I had just gotten back from work. I was a little agitated anyway because I was hungry and because some days are just so annoying. I just sat there in my big chair, eyes shut, thinking what I'm doing with myself. And just then, thunder, the light breeze had become a little charged and somewhere in my house a window made a loud thud as it hit the frame. I woke up!

I looked out and I thought it must be pouring, I was disappointed when I looked at the pale blue sky and the light brown dust being carried by the wind. I wanted to make myself a cup of coffee and simply retreat into my bed.

And then magic happened!

It started pouring, the rains were here. They were not the rains that I'd witnessed in the last few days, it was not light showers. These were rains, the hindi film romantic rain, the "barish me cham cham' dance tune rains, the 'peheli baarish' rains. This downpour reminded me of the Shubha Mudgal song ' Ab ke saawan'. It felt apropos. I was out (obviously)

The Leaves and the washed perspective on life!

Just then my overly concerned mother who knows if I do end up having a fever I will be a big cry baby! pointed out that I'm better off inside. But I decided to use the old "5 min sleep' bargain with her. "Yes Maa, 5 min" by this time I'm drenched. She knows there is no point in asking me to come in. But just because she is my mother, she chooses to ignore my countless pleas and demands that I get in that very second.  #Enter savior#

My brother just happened to enter at the end of my 5 min in the rain deadline, he suggests we go out for a walk in the rain! I happily obliged. By this time I had forgotten everything, I was IN THE MOMENT! That was a magical thing for me, considering that in the past few months I've been living in the past or in the future. Worrying, fretting, imagining. Now, there was none of that. No thoughts of the future, no grief from the past. I'm not suggesting it'll not comeback. But just then, it wasn't. If rains could cure the hurt, the worries, the troubles both imaginary and real, the monsoons would be considered anti depressants.

A few drops here, a reminder of a few drops there. 

But something more wonderful happened, I was there, all ears. Wanting to make an attempt. I wanted to stop making an excuse for not doing things. The life in those leaves, the croaking of those frogs, the crickets, the gushing of the waters down the drain, the thunder, the lightning all of that was so full of positive energy!

I was transported back to a self where I was a hopeful teenager, full of zeal! I just wanted to do thing. Just do them! Speaking of being a teenager, I was reminded of making paper boats with my family and floating them, especially with my grandmother. Just one of those things you do because it is one of the things you can do!