The Rain

This story is selected as Editor’s Choice

The sun, having been to its maximum, was heading to just the opposite of where it had arisen. So enjoyable had been the day—of the mid of March—not so hot, nor cold; just soothing. You could see the ambience lose its brightness for clouds had appeared in the sky, all of a sudden. You could well forecast of the smir, but not before the evening.

The child, aged as exact as ten, came out of the room; went to the balcony with utter excitement. All the beauty that nature had, you could see in his glimmering eyes, or in his vivacious sentence, “I wish I get soaked in the rain.” His grandmother in the kitchen knew that it would rain, though never thought it as a pleasure, so busy of her. She shouted from there, “Vishnu, don’t think of getting out, or you get wet then you get cough.”His eyes contracted, the glim in the eyes was gone as if it never had there been.

And, the poet who was lying in a dark room was motivated as soon as thunder roared from the sky. He went right to his shelf and took his diary, said, “So long it’s been since I wrote the last!” The diary showed his last composition created in the last month, titled—‘The Lost Dream’.

And, the sportspersons while playing on the ground, shouted, “Well done! Bravo!” And, when the clouds shrouded the sun, out of surprise all of them tried to find the sun, their hands making a cap over their forehead. “Thank God! The sun gone, we can play a lot more,” shouted the youngest among all of the sportspersons, then, “Back to your position, men,” the fielding captain commanded.

And, when the old man saw the glow of the sun gone dimmer came out in the balcony and sighed, “Gift of God, this weather!” As poured in the reminiscence soon he was, his lips curved and eyes sparked, surely, he was reliving his prime, his youth. He murmured a counter-reply, “I would, if you share this moment with me, Darling,” though asked was there no question. The child, Vishnu, the same one prohibited by his grandmother, came to his grandfather in the balcony, said, “Grandpa, is it going to rain?”

Thrown out of his imaginations, he said huskily, “Yes, Son. It is.”

“Then shall we get wet in the rain?” eyes sparked again.

“Lest your grandma,” the old man whispered “should see us, Vishnu,” and smiled with stealth. Child’s lips contracted. His eyes suggested compulsion and dejection.

Another street, the young man was with folders on his table, in his house! His eyes were contracting and widening with the complications of the accounts. Newly wedded, young man was missing something, as his wife thought. Her heart had the angst what she never disclosed by her words, but her actions effortlessly suggested of her being felt unnoticed; when she should have been the thing most desirable, in such an adoring weather. So foolish of the husband, goodness!

She reached at the window, undid the curtains in an implicit fury. Curtains made a sound of bang; curtains never sound like that. Not she could do was resist, shouted in misery, “Why don’t you see what’s happening outside?” And, his head down, eyes peeping her out of his spectacles, his face with exclamation. He could see her face ruddy out of the anger, eyes—just about to burst in tears. Her eyes stared him as if saying, “I feel deprived.”

His chair shifted, he went to her and embraced her in a swift, said, “I was waiting the moment it’d rain.” They now streamed—her eyes; the duplet of lake—her eyes with tears’ stream. The embrace went snugger.

And, the evening veiled slowly, thunders roared, lightening flashed and droplets downed on earth like pearls.

The poet took his pen once again. The sportspersons went even more enthusiastic; diving and letting their clothes go filthy. The old man came in the balcony and the child accompanied him. The grandmother, too, came to the balcony, said to the old man, “Will you take coffee?”—“I would, if you share this moment with me, Darling,” the tone mimicking that of his youth. The grandmother felt shy worse than a teen. And, O there, the droplets tried to peep through the window them—the couple who were lost in their eyes!

Leaves were having shower, getting off the dust, getting anew and colourful, vivid and lively. Like getting a new life and all new essence! And, the soil forgot her thirst; not forever as she would feel that thirst again, and would again be satisfied. The thirst is inevitable, so is the coming of the rain, just that Soil does not lose the hope that it will.

The Rain had washed everything, houses—big or small, streets—narrow or wide, trees—long or tiny; without the slight of distinction.

Washed were, to my knowledge, the love-letters of the teen boy who wished to convey to his beloved. Later, he came to know she had already been with some other boy. I remember how badly he cried, but to get strong, and sobbed, “I’ll always pray for you, Darling.” It had been even more pathetic when the girl told about the other boy to a classmate of the teen boy. So patient of him that he never felt jealous of him and said to her, “I wish I were as lucky as him.” I don’t know the whence, but perhaps one night, he threw off all his love-letters and said, “This journey never ends.”

Washed were the litters and the broken toys, among them, which the slum-kids would see while on their patrol. The broken toys would surprise them and would infer: the child of the rich man was so blessed! Still, the slum-kids would have never any complex, and would try to find the remaining piece out, unknown to the fact that one of the slum-kids had already taken that piece, just after having the previous rain.

The rain, could have lasted long, ended. Time: evening just ending, night just starting. It was not that lighted, yet not that dark.

The child insisted his grandpa to move out for fresh air; so they moved out.

The poet needed a close of his composition; moved out.

The sport persons had stamina but not light; returned.

The couple, no angst between, having made love; moved out.

The teen boy missed her badly; in a hope to see her; moved out.

If you were an eagle sailing in the sky, you could have seen them approaching from different corners to one square amid the road. Everyone looked so cheerful, so refreshed. Their eyes sparked as if lightening had entered in them; they spoke with so much enthusiasm, as if thunder had settled in their throat, they walked so dynamically as if wind had got in their feet.

Is that what the rain does to everyone, every time? Does the rain always make one enjoyed?

The movable shops at the square were not as dense as they used to be every day. And, why were the faces of shopkeepers so dim like a done flower? Why were they so inactive like diseased? Because—the rain had not let people come out to have the edibles of the shop. The evening was the blessing period and the rain disputed with the evening and marred it. So was marred the fortune of the shopkeepers, among them one, the most miserable, sighed, “Hardly ten costumers today. God, You do for good whatever you do. Just don’t let my little ailing daughter die. Just don’t let the creditor come today also. I am fed of taking debt but the last, if You could give me and my daughter death as debt, God.”

Just then, every one—the child with his grandfather, the poet, the couple, the sportspersons and the teen—passed everyone. Almost everyone heard him say that sentence.

The dejected shopkeeper moved his establishment, said, “Hardly ten costumers today. God, You do for good whatever you do.”

The child looked into his grandfather’s eyes as if were asking, “What is the matter?” the old man is so moved by the scene that heard nothing of the child and murmured, “God, the destiny of You!”

The poet was sad and moved; he felt hard to write down in his diary a title, “the inevitable dejection.”

The couple, holding each other’s hand, pressed it tighter and enclosed it fitter; said nothing.

The sportspersons so engaged in the gossip of today’s game, they heard no sentence and noticed nothing.

The teen said, “I got nothing for this man. God, relieve him please.”

The child sprinted back to the shopkeeper who was still moving his establishment. He had returned home with his grandfather having taken his gullak had run straight to him.

“God, please give me and my daughter death as the last debt,” he kept saying.

The child, having come just beside the shopkeeper, said, “Don’t take it as a debt,” he made the gullak ahead, “I never give anyone debt. Take it please. Hardly have I taken a penny out of it since I started collecting. Since last five years.”

The shopkeeper was taken aback at this, and a bit of moisture had his eyes got, said he, “How am I going to,” he cleared the throat, “to repay, son?”

“I said it’s not any debt, Sir. It is the rain.” the child said.

The eyes of the shop keeper became ocean, and tears—tidal waves which completely washed off the region, that is, his cheek.

“Your tears attract mine, Sir,” child’s voice went moist.

The shopkeeper had taken the gullak. His sobs were discouraged. He moved. Hardly had he walked a couple of steps, he said, “Oh, no! I forgot to ask the name of the child!”

He turned around and got nothing, cried, “Oh, God!”

The child had vanished.

As he said, “Oh, God,” how did the shopkeeper know that the name of the Child was God?

Because, everyone who makes the rain and none else, bears the name and is, for sure, “God.”

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