Night Music

Shhh! Whoosh! Splash!
It rained all night.

It’s raining. And I long to be out there. In the rain, to get wet and to let go of all the well-cultivated “civility.” To be one of the elements; to breath in the rain-kissed air. To flashdance in the colourful lightening.

There. The sky just rumbled. Like a baby lion trying it’s first roar. Sound of music. It’s party time out there. I have seen in the movies and read in books. Rains have always been loaded with some or the other sinister meaning. In Frankenstein, In Gone With the Wind, In… but not tonight.

Tonight it seems as if it is a first time lover, who is shy and yet excited to be a part of age-old ritual. It is playful and apprehensive too. Tonight it’s playing night music.

The electricity went bust and yet I am not afraid. Why? Because it isn’t dark. Even though it is well past 10 PM, somehow there is this glow in the sky. And I can see everything. And the occasional lightening are good discotheque-like ambience. The rain is so hard that raindrops keep falling into my room. Now I know why Butch sang “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head…” or Gene Kelly had Singing In The Rain made.

I am reminded of the day when one night I tried to see the moon and found something much more enchanting than that. That night, towards the south-east skies, some clouds had gathered. And there was lightening. Just within that cluster of clouds – there was amazing “natural fireworks.” It was eclectic. Lightening bolts seemed like playing Pin The Tail. And bright oranges, blues, yellows… different colours of flashes adorned the sky. And the most astonishing part was that is was all so quiet. No sound at all.

Words fail me to describe the perfection in that image. Just as words fail me right now to explain what I feel. All my senses are thrown into overdrive. The sensuality of this is so complete. They say perfection is hard to improve on. I say God proves otherwise every time it rains.

The cacophony of rain at present makes me wish all those small things I used to do in those early showers of monsoon in Delhi.

Get dirty. Purposefully jump into muddy pools. Find excuses to go to the terrace and get drenched. Splutter rainwater that rolled down my face. Laugh like silly and then choke on your own laughter.

As there is a queer glow to the sky, I see the silhouettes of coconut trees swaying – as if squatting away rainwater off them. Though I can’t see the ground from the second floor window, I imagine the water puddles helter-skelter down there.
The utter bliss of the moment is now. The celebration of nature. The stag party of monsoon. And I am melting without being drenched in the rain at all.

The faint perfume of wet earth makes me reel and wish I was out there in the rain. The illuminated clock-hands tell me it’s 11.30. Some residual practicality sends me the message that I have to get to work the next morning. My heart is not into sleep yet though my drowsy eyes and lousy handwriting tell me otherwise. I know I have to sleep to dream of rains. To hope for another rain again. When I would be a part of it. I would be wild and not civil at all. I wish the night would never end.

As if to defy my wish, the sky just flashed mean and also roared so loud I think my ears are scarred for life. And to punctuate the flimsiness of the moment the electricity just came back.