rain rain go away

I hate rains...

My earliest memories of rain disrupting my normal life have never been memorable... And i hate any deviations from a normal life that i want to lead... That i lead it abnormally is a different story, but i dont want anything disrupting it... I don't mind the rain... As long as it is behind a glass-sunroof, preferably slanted, above my living room while i sit in the living room totally dry with a hot cup of coffee and a louder home theater system...

I vividly remember rain disrupting my cricket-match schedules, my weekly school library book-issue schedules (i was a book-aholic then) and then the usual going home schedules... Yuck !!! Wading through all that floating garbage and diluted knee deep sewer water - something you get when you mix the two extremes of purity...

It is not that rain is always bad... I do remember once when our school announced free 5 marks per subject - that is a whopping 25 marks in your aggregate for all the dedicated souls that came to school on that rainy day. Probably that was the only time i was in the top 3 of my class much to the chagrin of the usual class topper who failed to turn up from his flooded home some 20kms away... Long live our vice-principal who had to take that decision (and risk getting a beating for giving away free marks which she did get obviously) since our principal too was stuck in the discomforts of her warm home... And then there was this continuous set of holidays for almost a week because of heavy rains and we school kids could stay at home and watch tv during the day and play carrom and sleep late snuggled under warm blankets and anytime we wanted we got hot mom-cooked food... My most delicious bread and jam was the free one on one of the rainy days when we were stranded at school and our management was contemplating if we should continue staying in the safety of the school cold and hungry or we shud make the arduous journey to our homes where hot food and concerned moms awaited us... And who can forget those amazing schumi drivings in the rain soaked f1 races or the million-zillion times where india must have been bailed out of a sure shot no-longer-embarassing defeats in the cricket grounds... Or those amazing floods in mumbai that saved me escaping my birthday bashes...

Coming to the trigger of the post - it rained yesterday; and yesterday was the day i decided to take the pleasure of driving to work on my bike... After a not-so-harrowing-but-in-fact-slightly-pleasurable ride to work i was looking forward to a similar ride back home... All the while no one had noticed the ominous black cloud creeping up above us... So there was the black cloud hovering above me like the alien space ship in “independence day” getting ready to fire the primary weapon at the precisely pre-decided time when i would be out in the open... And i oblivious to all this plannings decided to beat time and reach home before the rain could catch up with me... How naive !!!

So i get out of the building as it was not even drizzling when i was getting into the lift at the 5th floor... And at the ground floor it starts a heavy drizzle... News travels real fast... And so i decided to go back to the safety and dryness of my otherwise cold office... I take refuge in the library and 2 newspapers later i see the rain having let up slightly... I go for a coffee at my cafeteria and i watch the parking lot for sometime at something weird but unable to understand what it was... Then it struck me - a dry patch was not getting wet... That meant the rain had stopped and the rain gods have heard my prayer... So trusting of me... So i rushed out wearing my rain jacket just in case. But by the time i reached the ground floor the rain clouds were firing on all guns...

I waited for about half an hour hoping it would accept my acknowledgement of defeat, but then looked like rain had declared war... So i decided to brave my way through on my trusty bike... So i walk to the parking lot dripping wet already, so that i did not feel the tingling sensation once i sat on the wet seat... And off we went into the rainsoaked night...

Thick rain had made it impossible to see through my helmet visor and i lifted it to expose my face to the fury of nature... (i wont call it mother nature becos mothers are supposed to be benevolent and understanding... And always ready with a hot cup of coffee). So i make it some distance after which i had to remove my specs too as they were made of the same material as my helmet visor (though costing many times more per square inch) to enable relatively increased visibility... After passing lots of blurry signboards i somehow managed to trust my instinct - i was sopping wet anyways, another load of water for some more time is not going to make any difference... And my rain jacket was all bloated up with the water it had so meticulously soaked up and my arms were like two pipes pouring water like a chennai metro water tanker all the way...

Somehow i managed to reach home and parked my bike with some difficulty in the cramped and waterlogged slush... I trudge up the steps to my room-with-a-view... And it all stopped... The absolute silence was like paying its respects to the ordeal i have been through or maybe the martyrdom of my laptop, mobile and any other remotely screwable high value electronics...

I hate rains...