The word "RAIN" was one 4 letter word I was allowed to say with gay abandon , untill a similar 4 letter word with a sexual connotation caught my fancy."RAIN" to me meant so many things,one of which was the smell of wet earth that made me dart across and get wet in the rains, or stay behind moist windows and watch the angle at which rain drops fell,while people made their way through the waters that covered the potholes in the government made roads it also meant a passport to the 1 day of freedom that one gets during school as we triumphantly march back home,after knowing that the school has closed due to rains(before the age of the quintessential BSNL Landline)."RAIN" meant getting a full day to read the newspapers and watch "PRIME SPORTS" (Known in modern day parlance as STAR SPORTS).
When it rained,it was a day we pitted our toweringly made boats on the puddles of water,fighting out whose boat would win the puddle race,and who would be the first to reach the apartment mezzanine floor when the rains started to get heavier was a day when we had crazy run rate calculations to our 6 over matches played between B BLOCK and C BLOCK, in rain shortened circumstances,much before Duckworth and Lewis adopted the rain rule.
It occasionaly meant sitting at home without the power and listening to stories that grandma and grandpa would tell of their youthful days and ofcourse the candle lit dinner amidst the breeze that blew over from the nearby Besant Nagar beach.Life hasnt changed much since moving to madipakkam, except for the fact that,the powercuts are longer now,waterlogging stays on for months and ofcourse life is paralysed in all its forms.
October 2005 was a defining month in my career,as it ate into the precious time that CAT 2005 needed, and over and above literally ruined my house.It initially started with breaking my wall,that allowed water to seep into my bathroom and find its way into our living rooms.I must ahve spent around 3 nights at different parts of the month of October , in the fear that water would enter the house.Incrementally the water did enter and it reached a crescendo the third time,when it came upto knee level inside my house,which is built 3 foot above road level.
Here are a few pictures of last years horrible rains.The write up on the nights and the nightmares will soon follow as and when I get some time to update.I thought I shall post this when I saw some images of the Mumbai rains,which seems to threaten the 7/26 phenomenen.
View from my Terrace the night after the 3rd set of rains
Thats my groundfloor hall.Below lies some of my best books and I had to swim in that gutter to get some of my items that fell inside that :-(
Thats my brand new Santro..crying to be born as a boat
2 comments:
nice article..invokes past memories..we used to goto terrace and watch the level of flooding and if rains stopped for a temporary moment would immediately go and fly the kites as the breeze would be maximum then and the thrill of controlling it would be tremendous. flat cricket...those were days !! now all of a sudden life seems too mechanical..vagaries of IT world i suppose..:(
just realized tht temperature outside is 40 degrees and its Bellodyy Hawt!!
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