Rain Swag Dashed

Walking solo in the rain has a streak of the theatrical inherent in it. Or so I thought. Here I was walking, trying to save my steps from the muddy puddle traps that the dimpled road and the monotony rain had made. Come to think of it, every rain has a tone of its own - jhomjhom, tiptip, toptop. So today's tiptip rain had this tonality to make me super bored. With Ma and Babuji, there wasn't much action to be had indoors.

Courtesy: Internet

Ma had snuggled up for 30 minutes of teletrash - Ichhenodee - a lachrymose bangla soap that hinges on preposterous family politics. Babuji had his bi-focals focused ardently on Shibram Chokkoti omnibus. Gorging on deep fried chocolate momos, I had the guilt quotient rising high on the calorie scale.

So here I was all set, in a jogger's habit, a pair of squeaky clean trainers, Apple music blasting Men's health jingles into my feminine ears, to rock the world of cardio. I did well for 4 rounds, which kind of measures up to 400m*4= 1.6 kms. The tiptip rain had managed to soak my flimsy sports vest and my curls had delicate rivulets running down their strands. Then I changed tracks on Apple to listen to 30 greatest hits of Ghulam Ali and Mehdi Hassan. Minutes later I found myself sitting on a wet bench. On a grassy patch.

A mongoose peeked out of a nearby shrub and looked at me before writing me off as a pathologically boring specimen of life and quickly leaving for more interesting pursuits. I remained stationed there and imagined listening to Hassan Sahab live. I am good at visualizing the impossible, mostly comical ones, so here I was, eyes shut, nodding virulently to the sonorous baritone until I felt a light tap on my shoulder. Looking up, I saw a concerned pair of eyes looking deep into mine. The bald pate shone with the garden lights reflecting on it. For a second I thought Hassan Saab had rejected the joys of Jannat to descend upon a rain drenched Ghazal aficionado. I felt my lips stretch into a smiley curve about to break into: Arre aap?

Then the T-shirt and the pair of denims caught my attention as did the closed umbrella dripping with water. I realised it was pasher barir kaku (next-door neighbour uncle). Kaku had obviously found me swooning to the singsong rain; he did not notice the headphones of course. He thought I was having some sort of seizures and had come to rescue me.

"Thik acho toh? Bhijcho keno? Bari jao!"
(Are you alright? Why are you soaking in the rain? Go home!)

And I scooted into the rain, blushing a deep beetroot red. Like I said, life always refused to give me the little pleasures that I sought and gave me anticlimaxes like these instead.

Pasher barir kaku had robbed my rain of all drama today!