The First Rains!

This may or may not be a true story.

I tied my shoes carefully, made sure that the knot was snug and then got up. I had forgotten the ear phones of my mobile phone. I switched on the tracking on my RunKeeper app and began walking from my building out to the outer ring road in my residential colony. I did this every morning.

I was irritated at having forgotten the ear phones. My right brain thought that this might be a good opportunity to look at the surroundings and take a fresh look at the environment around me. My left brain asked me to consider counting my steps. In the end, I just concentrated on walking as fast as I could.

A form emerged in front of me, which was at quite a distance. It was perhaps a girl, looking at the way she was dressed. My pace increased automatically. I was definitely not walking at my fastest pace. Now, I gained distance behind the girl. It was not as if once I catch up with her, I would ask for her number or ask her out for coffee or even breakfast. I just wanted to look at her. “Why?” wondered my left brain. “To appreciate beauty,” said my right.

I walked faster and faster, but as I gained on her, another form caught my eye. It emerged from the corner of my eye and was slowly but surely overtaking me. He was definitely older than me and when he looked straight at my face, I recognized him as my father. His look seemed to tell me, “I am twice as old as you are and yet I walk twice as fast as you do.” “You are just projecting your thoughts on him. I am sure this is not what he must be thinking,” said my right brain. I ducked to the side pretending to be tying my laces. By the time I was up, he had gone a good 200 meters ahead of me. At the turn he looked at me, glared and walked on.

I reset my target on the girl. By that time, though, a strange phenomenon happened. I felt some thing falling on my hand. Not crow shit, I hope. But it wasn’t. My eyes confirmed. It was water. My stride broke half way.

“This isn’t the monsoon. If I remember my eighth standard geography texts correctly, the monsoon is to hit Mumbai around June 10. This might be the pre-monsoon shower. Wish I had setup the rain gauge on the terrace..” the left brain was thinking when I cut it out.

Slowly the intensity increased. Other walkers were perplexed, not knowing what to do. This was a strange thing to happen and they had forgotten how they had walked during the monsoons last year. But, then again it didn’t rain all that much during the monsoons last year. Since I was walking under the canopy of trees, the full blast of the rain did not hit me. At least not yet.

“What a beautiful sight! The clouds had covered the Sun. It has darkened a little. People are so confused not remembering what they did. Wonder what photograph would appropriately capture this moment. The first rains!” the right brain was thinking when I cut it out.

I pulled out my phone and immediately tweeted out and sent a notification on Facebook. This came naturally to me. And then, one guy among the walkers remembered. He swerved to the side to the shelter provided by an overhanging asbestos sheet in front of a grocer’s. Then, as if everyone had an epiphany together, each one moved into the shelter. I noticed, with disappointment, the girl walking into the entrance of a nearby building as I ran a short distance under another asbestos sheet.