Just like rain

‘This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.’

The sight of trees swaying in the wind from my bedroom window had me rivet to the bed in the afternoon languor. It’s the sight I love the most, and also the moments leading up to it. Moments where the sun would sequester itself behind the clouds and the sky would turn gray. Some would say that a sky bereft of colour is inauspicious, that dark clouds gathering around in the sky is a sign of bad weather. But it’s moments like these, which I really love.

You must be really romantic, they’d say.

I’d shake my head at such banal and hackneyed analogy.

Romantic notions is what I thrive on, I’d tell them.

So it goes. I step out into the dark to have my own love affair. Much awaited. The intoxicating smell of the potential rain hanged around in the air. I lift my head up to breathe it in, and as soon as I did that, two big rain drops fell upon my lips; a watery kiss, an airy love affair. Not strange at all.

There’s something about rain and monsoons- apart from the mud, the traffic, the mess and the insects creeping out of their hiding places-which is plainly romantic. There’s no sugar coating it. The intoxicating smell of rain, the capricious weather, the fascination, the ferocity, all of it had me genuflecting. Albeit the definition of the word romantic is very simple, it says-

Romantic (adj.): conducive to or characterized by the expression of love.

Therefore my feelings and yearning is same, it is love, and a much wider range of feelings that need to be placated by something other than rain itself. It’s such an absurd concept, of something as cold as rain relating to something as warm as love. Opposites attract, which is a scientific fact but it relates only to objects. Is it true when it comes to feelings as well? Is it what pulls people towards unrequited love? Like the rain. It’s something that you could have; it’s something that you long for. As if rain were a limbo, and the next thing you know, you’ve landed someplace where you could feel the warmth in your heart.

Books and coffee on a rainy day give me as much warmth. I’m just saying. Maybe the warmth that objects and humans render is different. It’s something I’ve never paid heed to.

Now won’t you follow me?

It’s raining.

You don’t like it?

No. I hate the rain.

Why?

It’s ephemeral, I hate that. Too much of it makes me sick. Just like short lived romances. I hate it.

And I ran into him in a cafe on a day just like this. Call it serendipity, call it chance. But these things happen often, so often that we take them for granted. I least expected it though, that is why it seemed surreal, out of the blue. You know, too good to be true and all? It’s too cliché, too mainstream. It’s predictable. Sometimes I’m taken aback, even when this kind of thing happens often with me. I just shrug it off. When it comes to chance, you can’t have expectations. It’s just an aphorism.

“You say you love rain, but you use an umbrella to walk under it.”

We thrive on such twisted feelings and things that entangle our emotions, spreading like a colour. And then you have its fifty rendered shades. No, not the fifty shades of gray. Or is it?

Rain- fifty shades of gray. How uncanny.

Some people grow out of it, while some of us are too passionate.

When we stepped out of the cafe that day, it was drizzling. The trees were swaying, the moon was shinning and the air was cool. He was conscious, just because it was so romantic. I could feel the warmth radiating from him.

Then it started raining. And we just stood there in the rain, side by side. In the distance, a couple kissed as rain poured down in torrents. It was just like how they show it in the movies. I pondered over the idea of kissing in the rain, it fazed me. I don’t think I can handle such strong urges or emotions. I’ve always wanted something subtle, something as diaphanous and as transparent as the falling rain; and yet, something unbreakable.

But then again, you can’t predict such things. Maybe nobody really knows what they want until they have it. The world is funny. Maybe these two people were just lost in the moment, or maybe not. Maybe they were head over heels in love with each other, or maybe not. Maybe it was just an ostentatious display of love, aka, public display of affection. It had to be.

And I, I could almost touch him. I could almost contain the rain. But it slipped through my fingers every time. Maybe you can’t have something like the rain. Maybe it is just a postulate of love.

I caught him looking at me. He looked away. I smiled. Almost like the benign rain, I thought. And maybe this was our public display of affection.

 picture credits: google.