Whether it was a gloomy day to start with or if it had suddenly gotten dark, when the rain fell, I was usually among the first to run out and get drenched to the bone. Rains, often associated with disappointment or sorrow, always brought me the utmost joy. And I never really understood why they were seen as villains when just a drizzle could turn my worst day right back around. Of course I'd known the reasons behind the dark shadow cast on the showers but I guess I never really appreciated it in its full weight.
Out of the blue I would bring up the topic of rain, because just thinking about it would make me feel warm inside. I can see, in my head, how everything literally glows after a rain. When the cold water touches me, I get ecstatic and start jumping; this comes involuntarily, my joy can not be contained. So when the monsoon is still months away and I go crazy talking about the rain, sometimes my mother or a friend would tell me how the rain isn't seen by many as the amazingly wonderful marvel it is to me. They tell me, while the drop in temperature and the bringing of much needed water is very welcome, how virtually endless pouring overpowers rivers, floods homes, destroys property, starts of epidemics and claims lives. None of this is new to me, having spent a large chunk of my life in Kerala, rain is intrinsic to my life and I'm fully aware of the damage it leaves behind. When I read or hear about various related news items, I don't do so as a cold third party; I have seen houses being flooded and people rushing to higher ground unable to save things dear to them and I know of people in my neighborhood being carried away by the merciless currents and of the sorrow of their families. But even so, I could never bring myself to see the beautiful miracle of rain, that I was so in love with, in bad light.
Today for the first time in my recollected memory, I thought of the rain as something bad. Looking back at it now, it could have been an amazing experience; just the sort of thing I would go berserk over. I should have been the one screaming, "Look from this window! There's ICE here! Actual ice!" I should have been the first to run out onto the balcony with my arms spread and face turned up, to pull my cousins and go down to the roads to jump in the puddles, to yell up to my mother or uncle when they told me to be careful of the first rains that that was the whole point! The first rains!
But I wasn't.
I was the first to notice the coming of the rain, happiness bubbling in me from the very first minute, and was well on my way to being the me described above. But as the family stared out the balcony doors at the unexpected storm, a gust of wind suddenly blew the cloud of swirling wind right at us. Within seconds the doors were unhinged and the breeze knocked down a few things in the room. We threw ourselves on them immediately and managed to bolt the doors, and nothing else happened. Excited people on the dry side of the walls exchanged comments in amusement, a small sheet of water crawled inside from under the doors, and the white cloud of water and ice had hijacked the balcony. The cloud left as quickly as it had come and the rain continued to fall vertically down. My family went back out to find other groups of people out doing the same and little kids having the time of their lives outside. The brief two minutes that took for all this to happen changed a lot inside me. We were never in any danger and I was not worried about that. But I couldn't stop thinking about all those people who weren't as secure as us. We live on the third floor and it took some decent effort on our part to keep it from flooding, living on lower ground and watching the water advance into your home is a very chilling prospect. The doors we clamped down were metal, what about the people who have make shift houses, whose doors and roofs would be blown away with winds much less powerful than these?
I had convinced myself that I wasn't a cold third part, I realize only now that I was, and probably still am. I feel as helpless as one would while watching the water close in on you, when I think about what I could possible do to help these people, who I have never seen, but whose images I can't get out of my head.
