We are returning home from Mumbai in our car taking the seawoods road. This road runs parallel to the sea and all around one can see the mangroves. There is presently no rain but black clouds like bellowing smoke are gathering in the west. They look menacing. Below these clouds are white clouds full of rain.
We are cruising at high speed as the highway is always clear. Now the clouds are advancing towards us. There is no wind which is quite surprising because the rains in Mumbai are always accompanied by strong gusts of wind. The umbrella does not work and I think it is kept more of an habit and the belief that it will protect from the rain. If you are walking in rain you will become wet within no time.
Now it begins to pour. Huge drops are smashing against the earth and annihilating themselves into atoms. Fog has gathered inside the car. Wiper is making an loosing effort to wipe the glass. Just as it is getting too much, we enter into an area where not a single drop of rain has fallen. But those dark clouds have now drifted towards another corner and are hovering over the hills. They are now pouring there contents there.
We are following a road which it seems running towards the hills where those clouds are looming. Soon we find themselves in the heavy rains. It seems as if the mighty hand of the cloud with millions of fingers is hovering over us and there is no escape. It can catch you anytime it wants to. We are like a bird in a cage which can hop around inside but cannot escape. Its limits are fixed, all clasping hand of the captor is always overwhelming. We are again driving by following the indicator lights of vehicles ahead. Every now and then the tyres fall into potholes,which have become like pools, on the road and get strong jerks. This goes on till we reach home.
It continues to rain incessantly well into the night. If you in the home, you don’t have to worry what is going outside. You can enjoy good food on these occasions. But things are changing now because weather has become fickle and completely unpredictable. When it rains, it send so much water onto the earth that the earth is overwhelmed and soon submerged underwater. Sea refuses to take back this water like the earth which has lost its capacity to soak the water due to mindless building activity.
I remember many people all over India cherished the desire of visiting the Marine Drive in the rainy season. How can one forget the many scenes in the movies with lead pair running madly along the promenade. The huge waves of water come rushing with great sound and spent their fury against the boundary and spill over the top wetting the passerby. The clothes cling to the bodies revealing the contours of the bodies of the young women who have come here with their lovers and husbands to enjoy the weather. They run here and there with the women always invariably in the lead and men following. Bodies are drenched in the water. There are corncob sellers who sell the bake the corn on the coals and sell to the merrymakers. Some are not so lucky and come only to watch the others enjoying and ruing their loneliness.
But the real magic of rains is in the countryside. The rains bring prosperity to the farmers. All around, there is greenery. Paddy crop is growing coloring everywhere with green color. Brooks overflow with water. In the night, there is cacophony of frogs croaking. After a momentary silence, one of them will begin somewhere and others will follow. The cattle graze the grass and bath in the rain at the same time. Some birds which like the pests on the cattle sit on them all day probing the ears of animals with their beaks.