The great southern rain, coming down like a waterfall from the Pole, from the skies of Cape Horn to the frontier. On this frontier, my country's wild west, I first opened my eyes to life, the land, poetry, and the rain.
Rains were a regular
visitor to our part of the world. They often arrived with a hissing sound and
sometimes with a moan that carried the smell of earth and cattle urine.
Drops of rain slanted down and turned the yard into a swirling ferment of mud
and water which gave out a smell that would never leave one born in that soil.
The lemon tree that guarded our backyard would look as if suddenly awoken from
a slumber. The rains never came alone. Frogs were ubiquitous. So
were earthworms. Outsized toads would leap into flower pots, clung onto the rim
and croak unceremoniously. And there were the mosquitoes that glided in swarms
like a paper plane carelessly painted black. My mother used to burn white egg
stands to keep them away. As a safety precaution we had mosquito nets slung
across the bed but it made the bed hot and the person sweat. But once the rains
started the temperature dropped significantly. My grandmother used to keep a woolen
shawl handy and every time the skies grew dark we would discover her sitting in
a snug corner wrapped with her shawl. She would spend hot summer afternoons
anticipating the first drops of a shower and during winter she would climb on
her bed with her shawl and the mosquito net as if it were already raining.
The first
beings that poked their heads out after the rains showed signs of abating were
the army of monkeys that lived in hundreds in the scrap-forest behind our
house. They would climb the roof of the house with stately steps and survey
their territory. My favourite pastime was to watch these creatures spread out
on the wet roof and scrap and fondle each other to rid themselves of the heavy
feeling that creeps into the skin after exposure to water for a long time. But
my grandmother used to say that monkeys scratch each other only to consolidate
their kinship ties. The slanting rays of a new sun would soon make the wet
surface of the roof glisten with a new-found alacrity that seemed to say- all is fine. Life would move on - the
vegetable-seller coming to the gate and shouting at the top of his voice
wearing a turban that he had folded from the piece of cloth tied round his
waist, his trousers folded up to his knees to avoid dirty puddles and armed
with an umbrella; the neighbours’ procession to the bank of the big river to
see how much the waters had risen and their wise counsel when they entered
houses on the way to see the impact of the rains on the backyards and the ritual
of women dishing out the water that had collected inside homes and complaining
of back-ache in between their tedious job.
A trip
down the road after the rains had cleared was always an enriching experience. The
young boys in the neighbourhood used to go out fishing and there was one among
them who captured my attention. He would neatly tuck his vest inside his khaki
shorts and jump over puddles splashing dirty water over his friends who were
all older than him, getting scolded in the process, but never discouraged. But
what made him a spectacle in our eyes was his pink slicker which he always
wore, rain or no rain. It was as much a part of his costume as his vest and
shorts. He did not have a fishing rod and never borrowed one from his friends
either because they did not want to lend him one as they thought he was not
very good in the business and would spoil the precious baits or because the boy
himself never showed any interest.
My mother
told me one day as the boy ambled behind a gang of boys armed with fishing rods
-
“Why can’t you be like that little boy? I wish I had a son like
him.”
The words were couched in generous sympathy with the boy as well
as displeasure at my dirty shorts that got filthier with the rains.
“He is a laughing stock of all my friends. Does not know how to
fish and swim. A dunce,” I replied, but not before discerning the curve of
displeasure growing around mother’s throat.
Yes, he
was a dunce in our peer parley. One who displayed a distinct lag in every step
that he took. One who was born with a vacuum that never filled up. One whose
skull, we believed was too thick to rub in a gamut of knowledge from us.
And there
he stood with his characteristic aloofness, unmindful of the hundred exciting
things that his friends were up to. How we pitied him resting his elbow on a
pole at the edge of a field running with water! Curiously, he presented a scene
of nonchalant absolutism that was ready to encounter head-on any criticism that
came his way. Yet he didn’t speak. Not even once.
The
residual drops of water that trickle down from tree leaves at the slightest
wind always slipped down from his slicker. He didn’t have the gloomy smudges
that dotted our shirts after an outing with the fishing lines. And so he was
different. Sometimes when we got bored playing with the water running in the
fields, we would pick at his shirt and sprinkle muddy water. And that always
proved to be the end of the drama. He would spring into motion mustering all
his energy and disappear over the road. This usually happened when we were
tiring out and wanted to go home but not before we had the final dose of
entertainment. The boy never complained or resisted but simply ran away. His
inertness burrowed the pearl of excitement that we tried to extract out of the
game. He never reacted. And one-way games are never exciting. How we wished
that he would respond to our taunts and then we could fall on him! But he
always denied us that pleasure.
And
perhaps that was the reason that our leader who was five years older than us
and was somewhat of a bully declared one day that no one is going to bug that
boy anymore. And we obeyed.
Things
went on as earlier. The declaration of our leader didn’t usher in any changes
in the boy. He would come and leave as usual. The only change that occurred was
that he would now leave whenever he wished and not run away over the road.
Primitive energies were once again gathering in
the sky. Monstrous black shapes bellowed with a vehemence that resounded across
the living world. A king stork flew away from the paddy to the shelter of his
lofty nest high above the trees and a farmer looked for his missing cows to
drive back home. The thin line where the sky meets the earth vanished behind a
torrent of dark clouds that hung low ominously as if threatening to spill open
at any moment and paralyse the earth.
And
nothing could be as amazing as being caught unawares by a trail of rain in the
middle of the road. We were returning from another fishing trip through a dirt
road among water-logged fields. We were keen on getting back home quickly; some
of us turned back to see whether any friendly vehicle was on its way so that we
could get a lift. Then the rains found us. The road ahead was a
series of broken mirror images. Home was still far away and we broke into a
run. In less than a minute, we were under the roof of the boy whom we
had made the object of ridicule but nevertheless was our friend who partook of
our games in his own uncanny way. It was he who was happier to see us and
looked even grateful, maybe because he realized that we had not shunned him and
still considered him a part of our gang. The sound of the rain falling on a tin
roof soon reminded me of our own house. The hazy metronomic sound regularly played
a part in helping us fall asleep together with the lullabies that my mother sang
for me. It was a march toward a crescendo, most of the times, with the
pattering of one or two big drops announcing the arrival of a shower that
gradually turned to an unbroken song with a sharp metallic edge that soon
blunted into a monotony that was no longer distinguishable from the other
sounds of the night. For us the sound of the rains called up night fall even
though it might be midday. Night and the rain share an ancient kinship such
that the onset of one gives a sense of the presence of the other.
The boy
was glad to discover that he was still a part of our group. We heard him talk
freely for the first time. He was not taken aback when the bully among us took
him by his neck and laid him low, just for some fun on a day sullied by a sorry
catch coupled with low spirits of the gang. The boy spoke at length and was
often interrupted by his grandmother who gave us a gamocha to
wipe our heads dry. He was wearing a loose white vest which barely fitted his
skinny body. The bully was quick to recognise this marked departure and
interrogated him. Where is your starched garment on which not even a drop of
rain can stand? He asked. The boy went blank and looked toward his grandmother.
Her betel nut-stained lips broke into a smile and she revealed that she always
encouraged her grandson to wear a slicker because the rains would always come and
never go. “Don’t take these interruptions as the norm, dear sons. The rains are
always there.”
She
walked with a bent that weighed under the experience of a lifetime of living in
the rain country.
(Published in the February 2012 issue of www.enajori.com)
