Another Rainy Day

Raining hasn’t stopped for a moment from the past three days. The sky wept all its tears down to earth. Neither day, nor at night, there was relief from those water drops. ‘Monsoon has arrived’ – there were joyous exclamations at people’s face.

A pigeon came flying in the rain, and sat wet on the window of a house. As it continued to shiver resting on the window, drops of water began to form and drop slowly from the cornice.

The boy counted from one to ninety three drops of water which dropped from the cornice of the window. He counted people on the road, then people with umbrellas, and then cars passing down the window. But he got bored. Nothing was to be done, and what was worse, he was alone.

“Go to hell those rains!” The boy struggled.

The wind began to blow much harder. And for some strange reasons, raining seemed more vigorous.

The paths were knee deep into the water. Drains and manholes were out of order. Rain water filled the drains and brought them to road high confusing people about the presence of the both. And frequently, they stepped on the drains thinking it as the road.

“Public is a funny character.” – The boy muttered.

That’s the line, where his life of writing started, in a very uncertain way.


*

It was of his late maternal uncle’s home he was living in. His late uncle’s wife and his cousin chose the first floor leaving the ground one for him. And as far as the landlord is concerned, he preferred the storage room to be used as the living room of the boy for low cost.
As for the boy, coming from mofussil to a city like this for higher education, the first option was obvious of living with his maternal uncle’s family. He was mere a twelve when his father dropped him here, with his watery pale eyes. He had never seen his mother, but seldom he heard about a strange home, but he was quite a child to be familiar with those words, so he let things go like that. ‘It’s all in our fate’ as he believed, which drifted his mother to a strange home, his poor father to a mill, hundreds of kilometers away from his only son, his uncle to the depth of dark death, leaving his widow and a girl as his cousin with whom, so impossibly and so unlikely, the boy fell in love.


Nupur. As they called the girl. Though not among the fairest, still, her dignified manners attracted others. And those eyes, for which the boy was willing anything to do, seemed to seek something in everyone’s mind. Besides, she was charming, and she made everyone laugh – laugh at small excuses too, at least till some years ago.

He still remembers of the festival two years ago. His uncle was still alive then. Durga Puja was occurring at their colony. He saw Nupur for the first time in saris, and how beautiful she looked! From that very day he fell for admiring her. Times come in our lives when we are not ready to believe what we do, but the truth was, the boy thus, started in an obdurate way loving his only cousin.

Meantime, the boy started counting inner meanings of the girl’s behaviour. When she smiled staring at him, the boy started thinking it as the affection of her. If their fingers touched exchanging things, he thought that it was done knowingly. Everyday, from morning to night, he passed times thinking about the girl. Days, months passed likewise and one day the boy decided to approach her.

“There is a little difference between love and affection, if you see. A smile, or a staring at you doesn’t mean love, and the one who takes these signs as love, are themselves affectionate to the person. And what I think, that we cannot share any relation apart from this. So think twice before you say those again. I have seen many people, of different kind, of different mentality, and after facing you, I must say that they... the public, is a funny character – who are falling in love with their cousins too”

And that’s the line, where his thoughts of love ended, in a very certain way.


*


It was still raining heavily outside. The weather was getting worse. Monsoon had not affected so much in the recent years, as the newspapers said. The city was going completely down to water, or somehow, trying to do so.

The boy got up and stretched his hands through the railings of the window. As the monsoon water touched his finger, a soothing effect blew down his body. Air had a smell of mud, smell of earth. The nature was converting to green, everywhere.

“Some day, you will be great, Siddhartha.” The boy muttered to himself.

The raindrops continued to reflect on the glasses of the window, making it as hazy as outside.
“Some day... may be a writer too.” He muttered again.


It rained, rained and kept raining outside. The pigeon from the cornice flew now. It flew on and on. And as it flew, the boy, the window, the house... the whole colony got hazier and hazier and at last disappeared from the bird’s little eyes.

- Written in July '07