The First Rains

After the scorching heat and dreary afternoons in the capital, I came home for a much desired small vacation, after 6 long months. 

The first day after a long taxing Indian railway journey - my train journeys by the way are always sad. I tend to depend on Indian Railways for a lot of reasons mostly because they are economical; I would not consider them cheap though, since we always prefer air conditioned coaches than the others. Most of the times I am surrounded by kids, the little ones who love to cry out loud (really loud) for no specific reason...senior citizens and uncles who love to snore and gawky strangers who love to ogle women, like a piece of meat making one uncomfortable and awkward. I question nature for offering eyes to such anthropoids!

Anyway, when the train reached my home town, as always my father was there to pick me up, after smiles and hugs concluded, I realized that the weather was pleasant. I was still irritated rather maddened by the hot weather, power cuts and the exhaustion in the capital. The moment I reached home, there were heavy rains (The timing was just so appropriate) and I got the sweetest welcome from my grandfather who exclaimed “You are so lucky that we had our first monsoon today”.

Rains are directly proportional to my smile. Like a stupid one year old who laughs every time when you make senseless funny gestures, sounds or antics, I smiled when it rained, each time. The feeling was awesome like I found something which I was yearning for long. I felt like ringing every friend of mine in Delhi and shouting that it’s raining here! But that would be mean and costly since my phone was on roaming and I was on sick leave from office

Since childhood I have loved rains, getting wet on the terrace and sneezing quietly repeatedly because you always fought a battle with an elder in the family with a motive to drench. So my mother smiled and told my maid “the children were enjoying upstairs…they love to get drenched in the rain”. My maid said I dare not let my children do that because the roof sheets of our house fly and maximum children in the slums and street urchins die when the asbestos sheets fall accidently on them. Her 4 year old died the same way. With red watery eyes she said, I was married at 20, He was my first kid. Rains are evil, she exclaimed.

I was present right there, overhearing while I wiped my hair with a towel, waiting for my coffee to boil. The smile, weather, rains, Bollywood picture of the sexy heroine dancing in a chiffon saree to please the hero started to fade away. She said that he was bleeding profusely after the neighbor’s roof fled and hit his head. Her baby’s blood and skin were washed in the rain after the shed hit him, till a part of his skull was visible. I did not realize that the coffee over boiled and started to overflow. I could just visualize a mother holding her dead toddler tight in her arms shrieking in remorse.

Thanks to the amazing fertility and skills of Indian men, my downtrodden maid and her husband hadn’t heard anything about family planning. My maid has 4 children and earns as much as the cost of an iPhone (second hand 2G that is), annually, a bare 3 digit salary a month INR.

So once you have so much activity (work, kids, husband who is the pain in the right area) in your life, you tend to get busy and likely reconcile after a while. But the very dialogue of my mother about kids getting wet in the rain scraped the miserable wounds from her memory lane. She was quiet for a minute, reached out to get some lemon flavored soap on the sponge and continued washing the utensils again.

And the devil in me or the ‘practical’ dame in me said – There are most horrible circumstances and mishaps than these. These people are illiterate, can produce four mighty children even after one is dead with such meager earning for god sake! Come on, don’t blame the awesome weather, it’s the irresponsible lady and her good for nothing Hercules husband who cannot afford a safe lifestyle for his kids, still breeds them. So I consoled myself and progressed towards the balcony sipping my Coffee (now half since it was over boiled).

The moment I reached for a chair and gaped outside, I saw a lady crying loudly, holding her dead son in her arms. I rubbed my eyes and realized it was not a movie or a dream, I took another sip of my Coco and Cinnamon flavored hot cappuccino. There was yet another woman screaming with a dead kid in her hands and this one even louder. What the hell was wrong?

The first rains were becoming too hard to digest now, don’t people pass away out of thirst or massive heat strokes in peak summers, and don’t they perish in winters or die in other seasons such as autumn or spring for the matching whys and wherefores? Why the drama now? Millions of people like my maid must have suffered more atrocious things than that, what is the fault of the weather here…why blame the amazing weather?

So I thought the right things to do were to lend a hand in my own little way –

1.    Help them build their houses to be water proof and strong or shock resistant in the brutal winds or heavy rains

2.    Tying the asbestos roof so tightly to the bamboo sticks that they don’t move forget landing on children’s head while they enjoy rains (very doable)

3.    Awareness on family planning (which is not related here but 4 kids…are you kidding me?, things you know you can talk about)

4.    Making houses in vicinity to hospitals or doctors

5.    Calling the area in charge/ mayor in case of emergencies, spreading a help line number.

We often think that cases like such must be in a million in number, in the world. What will make us the hero here? But the right thing is to help someone and give something to someone that you always had but the other person never had. Happiness is the biggest gift you can impart. Your diminutive deeds and minor considerations can bring about a major transformation in someone’s life.

In the end, I still love rains …the first rains for all good reasons but making someone else love nature the way I do is also a challenge now.