Moonlit Sunshine

A vada-pav never felt so delicious. Even a cup of coffee never felt so asked for, I’m sure. The time has come, ladies and gentlemen, to open your chatris and to wear your mottled raincoats. I suggest the latter more so because chatris tend to rebel when it starts “pouring”. And then, monsoon becomes more of a nuisance and passers-by are left sworn at. In other words, frustration sets in. It’s rather ironic that it takes a jiffy for an inanimate object to get on to your nerves.

It happens to a lot of us, students especially. A class is scheduled at a merciless time like 7 in the morning when even the sun doesn’t seem fresh. In monsoon, the sun is not even seen. Hmph. Nevertheless, I rush to the station to catch a train and the never-sad announcement lady happily announces that eight out of ten trains are cancelled. She knows nobody can come and smack her, na. And there stands a woman in despair, who has to reach her destination in less than five minutes and is stuck with a pile of books, half-wet, half-folded, waiting for a miracle (read “a super super fast train”) to happen.

7.10am. “Panchpakhadi jaayenge?”, the question to a rickshaw-wala which actually means, “Will you fly me to my class?”. He doesn’t care. Do these guys sense telepathy or something? “Haan ya na?” , I ask, trying to be polite. “Strike hai medaam..”, he says, like the world is in his hands. Well, does anything EVER come one at a time?? No, apparently.

And then, I walk, with my brand new umbrella, I prattled about, just the day before. It started to pour, like, someone opened the tap, but wasn’t satisfied, seemingly and hence decided to break it. Voila! My chatri shows off what lies beneath her beauty. She “opens up”, although nobody asked her to. “Shameless idiot.”, no no, not to my umbrella. A guy passed by and was blinded by the rain, evidently, and could not see me walking ahead. He almost pushed me to the ground like I was invisible.

7.45am. Annoyed, distressed, helpless, I reached class. When I opened the door, awaiting a soothing reaction from someone, the class bursts out laughing, like it was the biggest joke in centuries. Embarrassed, added to the first three. All I could do was get away with a sorry-ish smile and take a seat in the last row, so nobody saw me, the loser for the day.

Well, that describes a day in the rain. These are the times when everything seems to be mocking at you and everyone seems to be living a better life, just because nature is less harsh on them. There is nothing we can do about it. Every dog has its day ..or whatever. Hmph.