A FRESH NEW MONSOON MORNING...

It's that time of the year when this southern city gets some of the most exotic showers... There would be continuous downpour with cold breeze across and this turns the atmosphere really pleasant... There would be a continuous wrap-around of a silvery layer around you, you would shiver if you're not in your thickest woollens, and every now-and-then you would crave for some warm coffee or soup... Yes, the city replicates the weather of a hill-station, and if you happen to skip the remembrance that you live not in one, and thus look outside your window casually you truly get the feel of living in one... It's mesmerizing, it's heart-warming and yes it's really blissful to live here in this pretty city... And, if you're a little different kind you can and would want to do so much more in the downpours... How??? Well, if you're the romantic kind, you can just stand in middle of your terrace, letting the silvery drops drench you; and after some time you would start dancing along with them, yeah the perfect dance in the rain (and if you have a partner equally romantic he can join you in the dance making you feel so much more special)... If you're the adventurous kind, you can take a ride through the rain on your bike, thus letting your machine rush against the force of the pouring and feel like a conquering hero (and if you can't drive don't worry, you can ride pillion and feel almost the same and even better)... If you're the poetic kind, you can make yourself a huge mug of coffee or hot chocolate, sit in the balcony watching and listening to the tapping of the drops and scribble down your random feelings on your notebook (well, these days on your tablet)... Or if you're just 'into yourself' kind, you can sit there in your balcony for, who cares, how long, enjoy your lazy sips and can just be lost in your own thoughts, thus making the most of being with yourself... So, the list of things you can do in this weather seems to be endless...

And, yes this endless possibilities is what makes me get excited every-time the city experiences a stormy rainy day... I end up getting into all of these 'kinds' depending on my mood that day... Someday I get romantic, some day adventurous, someday poetic and someday purely philosophical... But in whichever form I am, I enjoy the rains to the last bit...

It was one of these days when the rain started even before I was out of my bed, and kept raining all afternoon through the evening... Everything around was in its dreamy best, with chilly breeze making you shiver through your skin, and thus making you feel just so amazing... And there, it was me, tucked in a warm sweater below my overcoat (I think people think I'm crazy to wear over-coats even though it's not that cold here, at least it doesn't snow here, but then I like to stay safe you see), with my socks and boots on, with a huge take-away mug of cappuccino in hand, in my little car driven by my driver...I reached office, started working, took little breaks in between to enjoy the view through the glass-clad windows, ordered coffee every half an hour, sipped lazily throughout work, had a couple of skype meetings with still sipping my continuous supply of coffee, reached a point where I saw the clock display 7 pm, and thus almost ended the day... The rain was still pouring, and suddenly I realized I wanted to be in my adventurous self... So I bade good bye to my car and the driver, called up my best friend to summon him to appear near my office with bikes, and convinced him to take me on a ride through the rain... Well, my poor friend wasn't too happy with the idea as he knew I would certainly fall sick cuz of the cold, but then of course he had but no choice to get ready and come to take me through the continuously pouring rain...

Thus started my adventure in the rain... It was raining actually very crazy, and the sheer force of the pouring acted on the bike, but then the flashy and strong bike did its job really well to ride through the force... My friend must have been angry on me for making him get wet like this, but considering he's my best friend, it was justified... And as for me, it was a bliss... I was in my winter clothes, so the cold could hardly affect me, and the rain??? Well, that was the most amazing part of that ride... I loved every bit of the downpour... After a while I let go of my head-gear... The rain drenched my hair, the droplets started crawling through my neck, and the breeze got into my warm clothes... Ahh!!! Thrilling was the feel... Every time I get into the rain it just takes my breath away, it makes me melt with happiness and thus makes all my negative feelings wash away... Yes, this ride did the same too... The exhaust of my hectic work schedule got pleasantly washed off, and I was truly happy...

And suddenly then I witnessed the other side of the pretty shower... And yes, it wasn't as pretty as the shower itself, rather it had a completely contrasting story to tell me... Somehow my happiness looked very shallow in front of it, and yes, the rest of my ride was engulfed with the after-effect of this scene...

Well... This southern city is known to be one of the most expensive cities to live in India, and why not??? In the recent couple of decades the city has witnessed tremendous change in infrastructure, flashy up-market residential buildings, high-end retail spaces and thus large scale commuting media, a lot have been added to the ever-growing infrastructure everyday... But then amidst this, and like many other cities and societies across the globe here too exists a world which is a far cry from this developmental proofs, rather do we call them the unfortunate counter-part of all this bling??? Yes, this is what I witnessed during my adventurous trip on that crazy monsoon evening...

Since the downpour was continuous, the roads of the otherwise planned city was flooded... I could see 'road-blocked' signs on many streets and could see the water flowing across... However, what wasn't visible was the fact that this downpour was also washing away a lot of hopes and dreams of many thus changing their lives... What I wasn't able to see is that there were many thousand families and their kids living in those small hut-like (these huts are not like the ones we go to stay during our luxurious trips to wildlife and beaches) shapes, and the rain had washed them all away, thus making them rather homeless... I would not have noticed any of these, and thus would have continued with my exciting ride, wasn't it for those small kids next to a manicured nursery...

This nursery happens to come on the road which leads me home everyday... It was some acres of land with perfectly grown potted plants which are sold to decorate people's (of course the ones who can afford to buy them without looking at the price tags) homes, mostly apartments... The red roof of the nursery reaches out to the adjacent main road, thus there's about a foot of shade that protrudes out towards the road... As I passed by the nursery on that cold rainy evening, I saw some kids sitting under the shade in front of the locked gate... There was a baby too in a slightly grown up girl's arms... I glanced at them, stopped singing 'It's raining mannnn', and as I often do, started making reckless and not-so-thought-out remarks on the kids (like, 'Look, they're trying to steal plants on this rainy day', 'Oh God! Those awesome plants will be dead in these kids' hands', 'Don't these kids have better things to do than stealing plants on a rainy day', and many alikes of these, which make me shrink in shame now)... I was going on and on although I knew my friend was irritated to the core... And then there it was, he lost his patience, snapped at me, and told me something which made me quiet for a while... He told me these kids of course couldn't have anything better to do, cuz they come mostly from the huts next behind the nursery, and since it was flooded now so their homes must have got washed away... And while their parents (if they have any) must have been trying to collect all their belongings these kids were trying to save themselves from the destructive rain by taking shelter under the nursery shade...

Well, that was something I didn't need on that pretty evening when I was enjoying the bliss of being drenched in rain... But, it was true, it was happening in front of me and I could see getting drenched in that continuous rain wasn't even close to being a bliss for those kids, rather they were craving for some shelter, may be some warmth and maybe, I wish maybe, for some food too...

Before I could say anything, we were far away from the kids... My friend dropped me home, and I took a hot shower to get rid of the cold... I wasn't excited any more, not cuz I reached home and I wasn't in the rain anymore, but cuz my excitement stopped looking so glamorous to me... It's not that I didn't know about kids who didn't have homes, it's not that I didn't know of people whose houses had got washed away in rain and flood, it's not that I wasn't aware of these sides of a city-live. But then what disturbed me was the fact that I wasn't ready to witness these with my own eyes... Reading these on various media was heart-sinking, and witnessing it in front of my eyes was a devastating experience... The door bell rang, my friend was back to drop some yummy food and coffee for me, which would have brightened my world on an average day... But today I wasn't too keen on being happy anymore... The scene of those distressed kids kept replaying in my head... I told my friend about my pain, he listened carefully, and knowing I was too depressed to hold on to, told me that I could do something to change what I saw, at least I could contribute to do so... I knew I had to do this...

I searched on the web for people who work for underprivileged kids, and started going through various aspects of what they've been doing... I didn't know how much time had passed by while I was doing so, but when I decided that I was quite ready knowing what to do, it was 2 in the morning... I let out a sigh... In my hand was a list of people whom I was going to contact the next morning, trying to understand if I could be of any help in helping those kids who can't enjoy the rain cuz they know they wouldn't have a home to go back the next moment... It felt good...

I walked to the balcony of my house, the rain wasn't there any more... The coldness was far lesser than the evening too... I wished if I could know whether the kids I saw were able to sleep at all... I looked up to the sky, like the clouds sailing relentlessly my mind too kept wandering... Along with it I wondered, what if the rains were as joyous for all as it was for me... I whispered a 'Goodnight' to the sky, and waited for them to bring the sunlight the next morning... In my heart I was longing for a new beginning with the new morning... A fresh new monsoon morning...

A PENCIL, CHILDREN'S DAY... AND CHEERS TO NEVER GROWING UP...

So, I had lost my pen and the diary again... Yes, it’s turning out to be a cyclic process in my life... I buy a pair of diary and pen together, use it for a while, and even before half the pages of the diary gets exhausted and half the ink in the pen, I lose both of them; then I buy the next pair, lose them after a while; buy them again; and thus the process goes on and on... And, yes, you guessed it right, every time the fault is mine (no, I mean seriously)...
Well, I was extremely disgusted with myself this time, both for the diary and the pen... The diary, being one I use at work, had a lot of important notes and information that I keep needing often, and the pen was a moderately expensive one (which I certainly can’t afford to re-buy anytime soon), and thus the guilt was real bad... And, since I needed a pen to scribble all through the day, I decided to use a pencil instead... My work-place, being a creative agency, has a stock of pencils, coloured once, sketch-pencils and also the plain ones... I picked a simple HB pencil and decided that from now on this would be what I would do most of my scribbling down...

I managed to locate a pencil sharpner, and started shrarpening the pencil... But then as usual, I broke it instead... So I asked a colleague of mine to help me with the job, and he happily agreed.... We sat in the balcony attached to the office just next to some green orchid-plants, and he started sharpening the pencil with a blade... And, just then, yes then, suddenly I recalled those days from my childhood, when I used to sit with my Dita while he used to sharpen my school-pencils, fill ink in my pens, and hand me over my fully loaded pencil-box...

And, suddenly I realized, only the other day, which was ‘Children’s Day’, I had thought about all these past years that I have passed through to experience the current day... And, somehow, although I’m not a person living only in the past, yet I ended up walking down the memory lanes, to re-live many moments from the same... And, thus, now I realize, although with every passing day a part of the child in me grows up, a part still stays the same, a child still...
Yes, a lot have certainly changed since the time I knew I was growing up... Have passed through a lot of phases, have learnt and unlearnt a lot of things, have met and lost a lot of people, and most importantly have fallen in and out of a lot of emotions... But the growing up never stops... From the phase when preparing for the exams was the only difficult event in life to the phase when managing finances to day-to-day maintaining a house (however small it might be) all by myself too doesn’t look like a mammoth task, life, for a moment too, has never stopped... From the phase when the first red-rose just brightened up the whole world to the phase when all the bouquets went directly to the bin, life changed so fast... From the phase when a heart-break could seem like the end of life to a phase where even many heart-breaks didn’t even stop the casual retail-therapy, the pace of life was like a hurricane... From the time when the first pay-check made the world go round to the phase when pay-checks and cribbing turned parts of the same parcel, life never slowed down... And, along with all these phases neither does growing up ever bothered to slow down... So we grew up, rather really really fast...

But then, did I actually grow up??? I don’t think so... Every passing day certainly does add on to the number of days I’m existing on this earth, but it fails to make me grow up... The child in me is somehow too arrogant to get out of my system and let me grow up... Somehow the grown-up world looks way beyond complicated to me, for me to even take a liking on... And thus I still long to be a part of my small world that I had when I was considered a kid... The small frilly clothes that I wore, the short hair that I had, the black-beaded anklets around my tiny ankles, the colourful colouring books that I had, the fairy-tales that I believed in, and the 10 chapter school-books that looked never-ending to me then, each of these is what I long for... And, most importantly I long for those moments when I could sleep hugging my Momu, with one leg on her; I long for those relentless chatters to Dita over every event that had happened during the day; and I long for those lazy afternoons when me and my little brother fought over colouring books and pencils... And, each time I long for these I realize, I have certainly not grown up... Cuz, apparently the grown-up world is much more practical than that... You don’t cry over small priceless pleasures, you don’t bother to stick around your past, you move on continuously and you focus only on fulfilling your larger ambitions in life... If these are true, then of course I haven’t grown up, neither is there any signs of doing so in the near future...

I know, nobody in this world really does grow up ever... We do pass time and thus turn into an adult someday, and along with it tend to take on responsibilities that the societal norms allow us to... We go to college after school, learn things, and get into a professional life and dream of achieving the highest high someday, thinking that would certainly make us feel complete, and bring happiness... But then this is so not true... End of it all, everyone finds true joy in the minute details of everyday life, and not in the biggest achievements of any sort... Hence, the small bubbles on the coffee makes us feel better than the coffee itself, we don’t stop buying the tiny chocolates that we used to have during our kid-days, we prefer relishing on what our mums cook to an expensive meal at a 5-star, we still sift through the pages of the old albums, and we still upload the pictures from our childhood in our messy hair and tiny shorts... Yes, we never grow up... Nobody does... My Dita has never grown up, he still weeps every time I fall sick; my Momu never grew up, she still starts singing when she buys new shoes; my Bro never grew up, he still comes crawling to me to get me buy him t-shirts; my best friend never grew up, he still gets insecure when I don’t give him time; and yes, I never grew up, I still fail to understand the so-called real and thus grown-up world... Had any of us grown up, we would have much beyond these emotions, cuz we would have been free of any insecurities...

Suddenly I came back to reality on my colleague calling out my name... He hands me over the pencil with a perfectly sharpened tip, just like the ones my Dita used to get me... I smiled at him and thanked him... I don’t know for how long I was soaked in my own thoughts, contemplating on the negativities of growing up... But since I’m back now, I realize, yes, it’s so so so much better not to grow up, cuz being a child you can experience that what you can’t if you you grow up... And, that ‘that’ is the purity with which you view everything that’s exposed to you, that ‘that’ is the innocence with which you live your life, that ‘that’ is the un-conditional love that you have for everyone around you, and most importantly that ‘that’ is the carefree feeling that tells you that it’s alright if things are not right, right now, it would certainly be alright when we grow up...

Cheers to never growing up...