Rainy reminiscences
The last couple of mornings have been gray mornings. I don't like to call them gloomy because I actually like gray days. Maybe it's a Bangalore thing, most Bangaloreans I know love the rain and rainy days or maybe I'm just nostalgic and missing home. It might be because of the fresh smell that the rain brings or the cleaner green leaves on the trees or the fact that it gets a little quieter in the neighbourhood during the rain. Or maybe it's the sound of the rain. I would stand on the balcony (picture taken on one such day) in my house with a cup of freshly brewed ginger tea and just stare into the distance and listen to the pitter patter and the many different sounds it brings with it. The sound of the rain falling on the railings, the sound of the water flowing out of the water spouts. Even the sound of the vegetable seller calling out in the distance is different when it rains.
Or I'd sit on the bed by the window with my feet tucked under me, reading a book while drinking a cup of freshly brewed ginger tea. (Yes, I love freshly brewed ginger tea and in my opinion I brew the best ginger tea I've ever tasted!). And then there'd be a power outage. At one time in Bangalore, rain meant power cuts. And then the whole family would get together, because there was really nothing else to do (I hadn't started knitting then) and we'd talk about nothing in particular or we'd sing (everyone in my house loves to sing). All this over a cup of ... yes freshly brewed ginger tea!
Oh but power cuts on warm summer days were the best. You'd know the power was gone when at around 6 pm, when it's starting to get dark, suddenly the whole world seems much quieter. The rythmic sound of the ceiling fan stops, no distant motor pumps humming and you can't even hear the muffled sounds of the neighbour's TV. It would get too dark to sit in the living room so we'd sit in the front porch. Our neighbours going about their walks and chores would stop by at our gate and chat with us. We'd discuss the marks all the neighborhood 10 grade and 12th grade kids scored and about cricket and about how expensive tomatoes have become.
And oh summer rains were the best! Big fat drops of rain for 10 mns or so and then gone. Just enough to cool the air and bring that fresh smell and wash the dust off the leaves and there I go again. Oh Bangalore!
Oh Bangalore! Oh Bangalore rains! You brought back lovely memories! Such a nice pic that! You are making me miss the coconut trees too! I even miss the cyclone rains that would go on and on for 3 days at a stretch which would make my mom complain about the laundry that would not dry. I demand ginger tea when I come over next which should be sometime soon to return something we'd borrowed :-)
ReplyDelete-k
I used to love the rains even more in Hassan. The climate is even more B'lore like :) (yeah yeah irony or whatever). In the hostel, that is exactly what we used to do during power-cuts. Get together in the corridor or someone's room and sing songs. Often quite besura ('coz of the multitude of voices and pitches joining in). We actually used to feel sad when the power came back :-P. Gosh that picture triggers such nostalgia. For the last 4 or 5 yrs. i've always ended up going to B'lore in that summer-monsoon overlap period. Warm showers, mangoes, messy roads... Almost all of B'lore looks more or less like that picture.
ReplyDelete@k Oh yeah the rains caused due to the depression in the Bay Of Bengal. Yeah the constant drizzly gray days. Ginger tea? Anytime. I just need an excuse to make another cup.
ReplyDelete@Suma Oh yeah I can imagine how fun hostel would have been with no power. We had a generator that they always put on if there was no power when it was dark. You reminded me of the bus journeys between bangalore and tumkur. A bunch of us would travel together and we'd sing in the bus together and the other commuters would make requests!
Yeah I know - messy roads, i was trying to forget that when I wrote this post :-).