The First Rains

Ah! So here we go again…It’s that time of the year when the entire City of Joy yearns for something. It’s so special, so refreshing, so fulfilling, so welcoming – yes, it’s the first rains. (Not the heavy downpours associated with the monsoon season, they do add even more woes)

Around this time in Kolkata, the humidity is high and the soaring temperatures make life miserable for most of us. The sweltering heat and perspiration makes it difficult to do just about anything really. And that’s when we are blessed with the rains from above.

With their arrival, life becomes so much more …

And as the rains descend, the coolness settles in slowly and wholly, the earthen smell of the moist soil fills the air, the leaves suddenly seem to turn more lush and green, somewhere deep in your heart you find the passion to do something you actually love so much so that you drop the nagging work, throwing all worries to the gentle wind outside, picking up a guitar and trying that song you haven’t played in a while, or sketching that unfinished portrait, or  writing a poem, or just staring out of the window with a warm cup of coffee…Somewhere inside you, that creative side, that passionate side of you gets a spark, you feel that energy and carefreeness flow in you, and it’s wonderful…Our appreciation towards the rains that bring the much needed respite never fades.

Yellow taxis on the roads drenched with the first drops of the gentle drizzle, kids taking their bicycles to the puddles, playing football while being covered up in the mud – laughing everything they slip or skid,  taking shelter under a shed to find so many stranded people, taking two cups instead of one cup of hot tea and enjoying that adda at the tea stall, or just extending your hand out of the window to feel the raindrops coalesce and flow away from your hands, watching the ripples form on the otherwise still lake, throwing away the umbrella and just embracing the rain and taking in the feeling in by dancing around in circles. And the lovely hues of yellow, red and orange after the sky clears up in the evening is charismatic.

Isn’t it magical, how the rains softens the outlines of things and makes them slightly blurry, taking away some of the heaviness you’ve been carrying for a while and making you live in the moment for then.

What’s your way of enjoying the first rains as they arrive? Do let me know in the comments section, and I would love to read and try to relate.