It was foolish of me to depend on the rain, I had to realize...nothing was to help, nothing at all. I had to move on this moment all on my own. But then suddenly, this moment was all I had. Life
seemed to begin and end here…in this one moment.
Things had been so different eight years ago. These first rains…I had been in love with them. I lived in the outskirts of Madras, not one of the places where rains were usual. The first showers of the year were welcomed with gaiety and immense celebration. I remember people coming out of their homes, on the roads on the terrace welcoming the cooling droplets of water which quenched thirsty earth and air. The monsoons came here in late October, the retreating monsoons. By that time of the year most of the other parts of the country start winters. Madras enjoyed its uniqueness in the untimely monsoons.
Ours was one of the few north Indian families inhabiting the sleepy little colony at Murali Nagar. With time and the bonding with the place, the general discrepancy of being from the north was lost. We were more used to the Rasam Satham diet than our native dal chawal. Baba along with his parents had moved in here when he was six years of age. Grandpa’s north Indian eatery, ‘Delhi Dhaba’ worked well to fuel the family to grow three well educated sons and two daughters. When he died, his sons sold the eatery and went back to serve more intellectual institutions.
Baba was the professor in an Engineering College in Madras and met my mother in one of his official visits to Lucknow. They were married after a year of courtship and set up their family in Grandpa’s old home in Murali Nagar. That is where me, my brother Anand and sister Payal were born and raised. We grew up in the blended traditions of north and the south. Payal and me would set up Golu dolls at Vijaya- dhashami and flaunt Pattu Pavadais during Pongal and other festivals. All three of us spoke fluent Tamil and found our identity more on the narrow streets of Murali nagar than visting Maa’s parents in Lucknow.
