One monsoon day
Tanya Gupta
Memories are funny. Of the billions of experiences, only a handful remain embedded in our grey matter. If they are pleasant, they are a source of comfort on difficult days. If the memories are not really wanted, they continue to haunt us, casting a shadow on happier days.
A remote small town somewhere in West Bengal. The skies darken, the clouds rumble and women scurry to remove clothes hung out to dry.
Children, asked to help their mother, are excited at the urgency of the task. Those too small to reach the clotheslines are asked to shut the windows. In older houses that have seen better times, women and children put pails in areas where the roof leaks.
Even the breeze seems to anticipate what is coming and its quality changes, carrying smells that become sharper and travel quickly. The smell of rajnigandha with a boring English name, tube rose, the night blooming jasmine (raat ki rani) fill the air with their strong scents. And then, without waiting for the mass of humanity to be fully prepared, thunder crashes somewhere and large drops of water fall on the dry earth. As the ground starts to grow moist, it gives off a smell that is elemental and primordial. Wet patches quickly grow and the ground becomes wet and sticky.
And the rain now comes down in all its fury. In the open field, boys take off their shirts, and a ball appears from nowhere, they kick it back and forth casually; and then someone shouts, two teams form and the game starts in right earnest. Players run across the field, with bare muddy feet, exhilarated to be fighting the elements and playing the good game. It is a moment perhaps they will remember and cherish later on in their lives.
In most houses, the focus is also elemental, but it is on food and not sport. “Monsoon snacks” are prepared. Young girls sit in the veranda and chat; then one sings a line of a song, the other runs in and gets a harmonium, and suddenly there is song, and if spirits are high, then even dance. Hot snacks arrive and for the moment all the senses are satisfied!
A little girl visiting her grandmother’s looks wide-eyed at the torrents of rain falling on the earth. The rain falls and falls and it does not seem that it will ever stop.
The boys finish their game and go home triumphantly to a scolding from their worried mothers (“if you fall sick now you can take care of yourself”), the girls finish their chai and singing and pack their instruments up and go inside. The buckets holding rain water have been replaced twice.
And yet the rain continues to fall. The girl wonders what will happen if it does not stop! She goes to sleep. When she awakens, the rain has stopped. The girl peeps outside.
The street is flooded but the rain water has stopped just short of the first step to their house. Any more rain and the house would have been flooded!
Her grandmother tells her what a good idea it was to build their house a little higher than everybody else’s ~ it was built for the monsoon.
The girl doesn’t pay much attention; instead, she imagines the house floating away in the sea, for miles and miles, she imagines building a boat and exploring the huge garden, which is now a large lake; she imagines monsters lurking in the water, the “monsoon monsters” she calls them.
He grandmother sees her looking out and forbids her to go outside. Putting the little girl in her mother’s charge, she goes off for her afternoon bath. As soon as she is gone, her mother turns to her, and says: “So what are you waiting for? Let’s go!”
The girl’s eyes open wide. She says: “Really?”
And off they go! The little girl has never been in a swimming pool and this is so much better! Her mother tightens her sari around her and holding the girl’s hands firmly, steps into the water.
Water is up to the girl’s neck. Perhaps the next twenty minutes are some of the most blissful moments for the little girl. From imagining underwater monsters, and walking around the once-familiar garden to “Mum, I am swimming!” It is an unforgettable monsoon day.
Soon, it’s over. They hold hands ~ a woman who is still a girl at heart, and the little girl ~ and return to the house.
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