365 DAYS 365 TALES

Singing in the Rain

Suhani was feeling miserable as she was looking at the buses coming and going in the rain. She was watching the rain feeling distinctly miserable. Her manager's veiled criticism was enough to ruin her day and added on top of it, it had to rain. The wet, sloshy feeling which Suhani hated.

She was looking miserably at the group of kids on the other side of the road who were screaming and laughing in the rain. Memories of her own carefree childhood, where she had run around in the rain jumping in every single puddle and had come back home feeling absolutely and blissfully happy, assaulted her.

It seemed impossibly hard for her to believe that she was that same person.

'What had changed?' She wondered looking at the rain. Now the steady downpour did nothing more than irritate her. All she could think about was that the roads were getting flooded and that her clothes never dried completely and she felt like she was stuck inside the house all the time. Suhani looked around and saw the others in the bus stop waiting, exactly like her, miserable and unhappy, just waiting to get home and escape the rain.

'Is this what growing up does to you?'  Suhani wondered. 'You forget who you were, the things that you love and become this different person who had no resemblance with the original. If so, then which was the real her? The present morose one or the past carefree one?'

'Responsibility!' Suhani decided. 'That seemed to be the bane of existence. Once you get responsibilities, you just forget everything you ever were and morph into a boring adult. So did that mean responsibilities were bad, something to be avoided? Well the fact remained responsibilities could never be avoided and the more you tried to avoid them, the more they made your life miserable. That was definitely not the way.'

Suhani watched the steady drip-drip-drip of the rain drop.

'Just because you have something to worry about, does not mean you have to be worried about it, all the time'. The drops seemed to laugh at her, almost teasing her, answering her questions. 'Responsibilities are supposed to define who you are and show you how you want to lead your life. They are not supposed to make you forget what life is all about. Agreed, the rain makes you sit indoors. Aren't there enough things you can do inside your house and still enjoy yourself?'. Suhani had an image of a portrait she had abandoned halfway and had dumped in the attic because she was sure she was never going to get the time to complete it.

'Agreed your clothes don't dry easily. So what? Don't you have enough of other options to try instead of trying the same boring clothes again and again? You love the shower when you take your bath and now when I provide one of the most beautiful showers you shy away from it! Why?'

Suhani let her hands out of the bus stop as the rain drops fell on her hands. It flowed from her hands down to the ground. Watching it was almost mesmerizing. After a very long time she took a deep breath of the rain and the rain-washed parched lands from her village came as a sharp memory. There, rain was almost a celebration. It reminded her of the tilling of the earth which her grandfather took her along to. Somehow watching her grandfather had made her happy then. The coming of the rain, the smell of the earth, it marked the beginning of something new, something fresh. The coming of a full circle.

Some subconscious part of her mind probably registered that the others in the bus stop were looking at her weirdly. But then before she realized it, Suhani stepped into the rain. The ferocity of the rain seemed to increase, almost as if it was welcoming her. Welcoming her back.

Suhani went back home completely wet and absolutely happy, that day.....

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(05/03)

By SAKrishnan (SAKrishnan)