A Drop Down my Cheek - II

Date: 22^nd June 2010. Time: Around 5 pm

It’s been precisely 309 calendar days since I wrote the earlier post and I’ve been wanting to post it ever since. You may ask then why today! Déjà vu… Once again after months of blowing fire nature has recreated the eagerly awaited magic with a sleight of its hand. Belting winds, a thunderous storm followed by a soul drenching rain, its back to square one and I am too happy to pen down my second extravagant experience and compile both of them into a memorable blog post. Though frankly, much has changed now. I have completed my Bachelor courses of four years and am starting with my Masters research in a field of my interest. Responsibilities have increased and my capabilities have increased too, I hope.

The atmosphere is dank. The water has permeated the air making it cold and chilling. A continuous thunder roars in the background seeming like country music playing in a lounge, while you relax and enjoy. Amazingly enough, being over 30 years or more old, the hostel suddenly looks so new and tempting! The tattered yellow plaster of the rugged hostel walls has acquired a dim sheen which proudly reflects its decades of intimate attachment with students like me, who live their four years (five in my case) of lives in this home.

The giant eucalyptus trees surrounding the hostel are gently swaying to and fro until a sudden gust of wind comes that makes the tree bend and its rain-dripping leaves break into a fervid dance. After all, after months of agonizing wait the tree has met its beloved wind and the mortal is reconciled with the immortal. In fact the whole microcosm is in a party time! The chirruping birds are so playful; it looks as though they’re doing flying acrobatics. The sky is partly overcast and a sweet cool breeze is drifting across me. I can even tell the faint aroma of wet mud in it.

It’s very correct that scientists today are trying to find traces of water everywhere in the universe. Because water does not just give us sustainability, it helps create, sustain and provide meaning to our lives... And somewhere very inconspicuously a small, bright and chubby kid, just out of his bath, peeked from behind the black sheet of clouds and with a slow but resolute step, began his long journey through the night.

A Drop Down my Cheek - I

Date: 17^th August 2009. Time: Around 6 pm

It’s a cool Friday evening and I am sitting in the balcony of my second floor room S-36 in Jawahar Bhawan. This room is perhaps quite envied by my friends for its perfect location for abundant sunlight in the balcony, excellent wireless connectivity and close to both the staircase and the loo, all ingredients of a good room. But today, the small typically hot room, seems as a cosy hillside lodging in Mussorie. Because as a sudden but pleasant change, the atmosphere has become cool and the sky is expansively dark and behold the eternal blessing... rain.

As the sky pours down profusely, I witness Mother Nature burgeoning herself into a completely new cosmos seething with life and vigor. The grass looks greener and so do the slender leaves of single row of trees surrounding our wing on the left. Numerous tiny puddles form on the surface of the earth, filling up with water and then suddenly overflowing to form a small avalanche of muddy water. All around me, It’s all so quiet, peaceful and lazy and yet so intricately filled with activity and spirit. It feels so queer that the noise of water gushing through open hose pipe ends fixed at the terrace of our hostel is a perfect lullaby to the ears and the soul. And though a raging wind is absent, but occasionally a whiff of cold air maneuvers past my silhouette caressing my face, leaving me with a divine satisfaction.

When I step forward towards the anvil of my balcony, an uncertain droplet abruptly lands on my left cheek. I try instinctively to feel the tiny bulge, but the shy droplet smoothly glides down and melts away into ignominy. Doing so it completes its circle of existence and embarks on a new journey in an unknown land; the show goes on. The sky is enormous and looks like a canvas painted in grey and white all dynamic and lovely. And sitting amongst and enjoying all the mesmerizing acts of the Creator, am I, the solitary thinker, marveling at this mysterious and exquisite phenomenon.