Rain

FINALLY, the skies opened up in Bangalore. After months of sweltering and exclaiming Gosh-wotz-wrong-with-Blore's-weather, the Gods finally smiled down. And boy - did it pour! I could hear the war cries of the clouds and smell the wet earth inside my sound-proof glass encased office....thankful that some things don't work, sometimes.

We went out to get a bit of the action. There is something about the skies opening up that makes you want to forget everything and just go out there and get drenched - maybe its a sort of a cleansing of the mind's cobwebs,or simply a desire to go back to the mad spontaneity of childhood. All around me I could see happy faces - people like me who'd come out to catch the first showers. Funny how weather can make such a difference to how you feel.

Feeling happy and uplifted, I was humming a cute Hindi oldie (Choti si kahani mein, baarishon ki paani mein, saari vaadi beh gayi). Someone close by was humming Raindrops keep falling on my head....yikes, what a bummer ! Who wants dejection when I was dreaming of getting soaked in the rain and then heading home to a steaming cup of masala chai and yummy pakodas.

And then it struck me - most of the English songs based on rain that I could recall had an undercurrent of melancholy/sadness -be it Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head or November Rain or All I Needed was the Rain - all are about rain bringing back memories of a loss or washing away a loss (mostly love, no surprises on that). Au contraire, a lot of romance and naughtiness in Hindi songs surfaces in the rain - be it the beautiful Rim Jhim Rim Jhim from 1942 a love story, the full-of-hope Ghanan Ghanan from Lagaan or the soft Saawan Barse Tarse Dil, not to mention the numerous songs where love/passion blossoms with a wet jig ...from Raj Kapoor-Nargis to the SRK-Kajol.

Well. Some people feel the rain, others just get wet.

*created 9 May