Wet sand...

I still remember that day like it was yesterday. As vividly as the day when I graduated. The date was…don’t you just hate such people? Those who can remember the date and time of every little insignificant event of their lives. The ‘Subodhs’. On the contrary, it was a regular, boring, ‘nothing to do’ day. And I was doing precisely that… ’nothing’. Getting bored out of my wits, sitting at home. I had watched all the television I could in one day (or one life maybe). I needed something better, something ‘more’ constructive (more?? What more?? There is no comparison…just constructive), something worthwhile to do. But unfortunately there was nothing else to do. I was jobless (yet again), looking for a job in a completely unfamiliar field (yet again), and I was lonely (yet again and again and again). I felt worthless, loser, and like a ‘dharti pe bojh’.

Luckily some friends called me, and I was rescued from the confines of ‘my own prison’…(for all you ignorant people, that’s a song). I got into an auto rickshaw to get to the meeting point. Just a couple of minutes into the ride it starts pouring outside. The first rain. I love the first rain. The smell of ‘wet sand’ (oh my god! How ignorant can you get…even that is a song…develop a taste people). It’s heavenly. Science says the first rains are bad for you, as it carries all the acids that were present in the atmosphere. Balls to science!!! The first rains are the best thing that ever happened. I could feel all the tension, all the worries just getting washed away with the rains. (Just a crazy stupid thought, probably tension and worries are basic, that is why the acidic rains wash them away). In any case I was suddenly feeling brilliant. Just when I was beginning to enjoy the rains and my spirits were beginning to rise, my rickshaw stalled. Apparently it’s not used to the rains. Rain pouring down with a fury, trying to prove a point, that it’s comeback time. And I’m stuck in the middle of a busy road, in a rickshaw. And believe it or not, instead of enjoying the rain, instead of getting down and splashing around like we used to when we were kids, when we were filled with innocence, what is the only thought crossing my mind. ‘My cell phone is going to get screwed’. Can you believe it? I could not. How high tech has infringed upon the simple joys of our lives. It’s sad, pathetic but omni present. Unfortunately. Anyways, I was not going to let something as insipid as this to rob the joy, the thrill, the pure unadulterated happiness Mother Nature was bestowing upon me (Oh my god!!). All I had to do was get a plastic bag, (irony: mother nature bestowing happiness, and me using ‘plastic’ to enjoy that happiness) to safely put my cell phone into. Eureka. Problem solved. Once that ‘daunting’ task was accomplished, I walked a little more than a kilometre in the rain, graciously offered my cab to a family, took a lift from an unknown person on a bike (and trust me, bike rides in the rain…SCARY), finally got into another rickshaw and met my friends. Oh and yes, the first thing I made them do, check if my phone was ok!!!