Rains
I love rains. It lightens me. I look at it and see, thoughtless, I admire how beautiful it is. Rainfall, in technical terms, reduces film grain in reality. It takes dirt out of reality, and real life objects like window panes, car surfaces, leaves, grills, and other such things are washed out. Roads become more reflective. Roads reflect light shown on them by the headlights of the cars and motorcycles ridden on them.
But there are flip sides too. In India, since drainage systems aren’t quite effective, considerable rainfall can clog the roads. So there are chances if you walk by the roads you land yourself into trouble…by stepping on a puddle. Puddles are everywhere if you walk. I don’t mind puddles. They are dirty, slippery, you don’t quite know what you are stepping on unless you actually do. Sometimes puddles camouflage a crater or an open manhole. Or, in other words, puddles, sometimes, camouflage a human tragedy of a frustratingly troublesome order. But I don’t mind them, puddles. They are like us, in India. They show us that water can get collected randomly, and in huge quantities, and at places most unlikely.
Today is a Friday. To most of us, it means a big day. Because it also gives us a sense of liberation that there are two work-free days ahead. So most of us shut our terminals down in earnest willingness of reaching our places quickly to be able to satisfy needs of personal productivity in directions perpetually unknown. I have this habit of spurting words which mean nothing. Sorry.
But I wanted to reach home on time, as well. So did 20-25,000 other software industry employed professionals, as well. And so did other thousands of inmates of this beautiful city, as well. Result? Traffic jams, jam packed modes of transportation, space-less buses, and cluttered streets. You can call me a rich, intolerable bastard, but the truth is…I can’t. I can’t tolerate adjusting limited space with people and struggling to get into an auto with 11 others inside a vehicle designed only for 7. I can’t, now. Maybe a few years ago, I could. But now, I can’t. I can buy a motorcycle, but I don’t want to buy a motorcycle because the traffic in this city is now unbelievably unpredictable and everyday I get to see ambulances crossing the hurdles of, and juggling this nasty traffic to help someone in serious trouble. I am good with public transport.
I want to buy a car. But I don’t quite have enough money and in this city I can’t really speak its local language. I’ll not be able to juggle my way through if I get into a trouble. Though with cautious sight of reality there exists not, a situation that may get troublesome…but with dizzy reality of us delusional-s, who most of the times speak to ourselves, you never know. That’s a fear that stays with me always. I have a habit of ramming into things with things that shouldn’t ram into things for this world’s, and its inhabitants safety.
The point why I am writing all of this is, I can’t go home when I wanted to because of overcrowded modes of public and private-but-shared commute. I couldn’t fight my way into one of those because I didn’t want to. I don’t want to fight. With rains, people get desperate because they don’t want to get wet so they almost start pushing for space. I can’t do that, and I can’t quite drive because there is inherent fear in me which doesn’t quite go away. So I don’t get a vehicle of my own. I went and waited, waited outside the software campus that gives me space to get employed to hire a shared auto (cab), or take a bus home, but couldn’t, and returned to the quiet and safe refuge of my cubicle. After half an hour getting drenched in the rain, and wetting the cuffs of my cargoes by walking through the puddles. I love rains, they add clarity to my world. By dripping and raining reality on my head and shoulders. My shirt starts smelling wet, and I can feel it. I think that’s why I like rains. I deserve everything this world calls frustration.