My Planet Is Wet Again

Our life at the mercy of monsoon; rain is back in

I was expecting coruscating sunshine around this time of the month, the month of September, but we could never challenge or read the contract between nature and firmament. The sky had a phone call from the obscure heavens to make it rain again. As if to remind us that somebody else is in power and is omnipotent. And sober. By all rights.

Credit: Author Prasant Trivedi

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain

— Vivian Greene

So my planet is wet one more time.

The sky summoned their knights and told them to arrange for clouds. They colluded, gathered in layers and then meshed together to form the plain grey canopy above us. We see it as abundant blessings showering on earth. Though it was more than a shower. Hours of cascading fall.

On my side of the planet, the slice of earth is drenched. It is more than wet. Life looks like it is at the mercy of monsoon. Its extra inning has commenced.

‘Humans cross the limit, why can’t we?’ said the Heaven over the call with Mr. Sky. ‘Why can’t we go wild and reckless. We deserve an adventure, too.’

‘As you please. Let me prepare for the mission,’ Mr. Sky, very meek, obeyed to his highness.

It’s time to get wild and infect the earth with our substance.

By this moment, the news of dams overflowing creeps in. An avuncular figure in our neighborhood stands under the darkening grey sky. The old man adds a sensation to show how solemn the news of floods is. The river of Narmada is laden with surfeit water, getting fat and dangerous every hour. The heart senses the alarming piece coming from the old neighbor. It skips a fluttering beat or two.

The green by me gets a new life. It thrives and exchanges smiles once again, signaling of some hidden politics. Once again the same rainchain is to be repeated: surprise waterlogging, puddles like runny nose of the soil, sparse sight of mushrooms growing near the foot of trees, soggy papers, umbrellas and raincoats, frogs sneaking around for their short life, inconvenient journeys, pakoras and…