Have you heard the rain?

(C) Saptarshi Gupta

Have you heard the rain?...when it speaks to you? Have you heard the rain?...when it lulls you? Have you heard the rain?...when it admonishes you? Or, have you heard the rain?...when it nudges you to lose yourself?

Have you listened to the rain when it lightly brushes against the window of a fast moving train, grabs your hand and sprints to a place where you know you are alive. It travels through your veins and gently taps on your throbbing neck, and tells you to close your eyes. It silences the sounds of the chugging wheels and spreads through your neurons - charging up your every sense and every thought. You are as conscious as you can ever be, as the silent raindrops softly touch the glass window and take you far away to the shores of Bombay where a shy child plays his video games as his mother fights for the covetted begging spot infront of Haji Ali. The raindrops pull you away from the shores of Bombay to the first day you successfully rode your cycle and did not fall, you suddenly remember each and every turn you took that day, number of times you rang the bell, and your smile as you triumphantly got off your cycle. You glide with the drops to the open meadows, a gurggling brooke cutting through it while the trees form a canopy over your head - a place you have never been to, but a place the minute details of which you can see, feel, smell and live as the rain drops gently nudge you to lose yourself - to the time, moment and emotion that you know is the best, yet unrealistic - never ever would you feel so alive when you lose yourself, if you just listen to the rain - as it gently taps the windows of a fast moving train. Have you ever lost yourself while listening to the rains?

Then the rain comes rushing down outside your home window or balcony, and each drop brushes against the other in great fury to hit the ground, and they speak to you. Do you hear as the draindrops form a mesh outside your window, erasing everything around, and you walk the lonely corridors of white walls, masked people, green overalls, silence signs, smell of antiseptics, heavy glass doors in the hope that the one who lies somewhere in this building will fight their way out? You visit and revisit each moment, when you felt that the worst is happening in your life at that moment, when the nearest one fights for their space in the mortal world; but the rain drops get furious, they lash at you mercilessly admonishing you for living the moments of sadness all these years. The drops scream at you, push you to move away from emptying the cupboards, packing clothes and belongings, removing the sandals, the books and the medicine boxes a decade back; and revisited innumerable times over the decade. They thicken the mesh infront of your window, blocking your own thoughts, pounding on the ground erasing all sounds from where you stood alone, confused, shaken as life turned into something that you never thought it would. Have you listened to the rain, just outside your window, as it overflows your garden, fills up the roads and admonishes you to break away from what is not your anymore - a person, a relationship, a success or a failure...have you?

And then when the rain comes down on the roof, foxtrots on your senses, intoxicates your reflexes by its rhythm, the rain lulls you to sleep, it holds you in its embraces, as you pull up your blanket a little bit more and see your first footsteps with your father holding your hands, you remember the first time someone touched your soul, you feel the touch of your beloved, your heart feels big, nested in your chest as the rain whispers to your ears that you have one more day-tomorrow - or may be one more - the day after to live, and breathe and learn - have you ever allowed the rain to lull you to sleep?