monsoon rain

Morning is yet to shake out from the rain that poured last night. Monsoon months have never been a matter of chance for this little town. When the calendar flaps turn pale with summer May’s heat, deep at the western horizon, the sprinkling hum of a drizzle heralds the arrival of monsoon.

With June, monsoon reigns in the dry land. But unlike summer, monsoon doesn’t sap you of life with a fury; instead, it brings the warmth of soothing lethargy.

Though it was quarter past nine, the road to which the steps lead from the temple was already bustling with traffic. Men of many needs and deeds rushed past each other as if they had to catch a last train. And in trying to keep their clothes from being soiled in the muddy water, they all moved like fish in a pond. Strangely, their aloof faces and their eager limbs were a complete mismatch. Occasionally, few among them remembered to stand still at the temple gate and raise their eyebrows and palms to the Almighty.

Ramavtar slowly finished his long prayer. While the agony of living paused his eyes, the trauma of living could never be erased from his frail, wrinkled face. The rhythm of his prayer moved his facial muscles like a cloth piece under a sewing machine. Other than that, nothing moved with such a pace in his body.

“Hey Ram…”

He leaned towards the bells to conclude his daily hour-long prayer, a routine he had never once missed in the last seventy-odd years. As if in a cinema, many faces, demands and conditions of his life came running before his eyes.

Rising prices…,

squabbling children….,

ailing wife, and his failing health.

Seventy years, he had certainly not been a small pocket of time. He had lived his life in these seventy years. He sighed, and for a while, he could not control those tiny drops of tears that struggled to come out from his paused eyes.

“Ram Ram”

He mumbled while walking towards the temple exit. Outside, by then, the drizzle had turned into pouring rain....

As Ramavatar walked past the door, a child ran through the gate. Water dripped from all over his clothes as he was drenched entirely in the rain. Not even bothering to wipe off the water from his face, he rushed to stand in front of the Lord where, moments ago, Ramavatar had stood and prayed on the same marble-laid floor and under the same bronze bells.

Slowly but steadily, a million demands began to glow on his innocent face. Outside, the rain now turned into a torrential pouring.