Alert: Yet Another Rain Post

The writing is on the window-panes.

It is transient, and the heart roughly inscribed on the vapour created by the sudden, heavy showers of rain will soon be borne away by the wind- very like the sea sweeping into the bay with a flourish and dragging sand-castles and toe-inscribed protestations of eternal love away in one large wave. It's inevitable- and therefore, or despite, the impermanence of it all, strangely fascinating.

I made a quick stop at the supermarket (with partner-in-crime Airborne) for a much-needed replenishment of sunscreen lotion and potato chips. Yes, summer is back (or so I was given to thinking till a little while ago). A quick rummage at Strand yielded a copy of Vanity Fair, a book I've long had my eye on. I detest 'Now a major motion picture' covers, but it was a decent bargain and so I put my intolerance temporarily away to accommodate a sly-looking Reese Witherspoon (?) on my bookshelf. Said bag of potato chips more or less equally shared and steaming tasteless coffee dispensed with, all I looked forward to was getting home to my cosy couch, cushion behind my back, book in hand, the aural assault of the vuvuzelas (call me weird, but I don't really mind the din- it is reassuring in a way) and possibly another upset in the tournament.

And of course all hell broke loose. The rain made up its mind to wreck my best pair of footwear and seep into the pages of the books I was carefully guarding in my bag. Airborne led the scrum for umbrellas and we managed to get away in decent time as the campus turned into an impromptu Bollywood rain-scene depiction.

Walking in the rain can be a tricky proposition. You don't try to avoid puddles- the most incorrigible dreamer cannot think of it on Indian roads- you only step nimbly and dance your way into and out of the most shallow and least debris-filled ones, clutch at the nearest elbow in sight and poke people's eyes out with your umbrella. You slosh through ankle-deep water (and this is in well-paved areas) and turn a blind eye to leeches, frogs and floating sticks and turds. This planet is big enough to hold us all. The slush spatters the clothes worn with bachelor-ly pride in the morning, putting paid to any lingering, unhygienic ideas of re-use. It sticks to freshly-cleaned shoes and vehicles. You learn balancing acts worthy of Anna Pavlova.

Have I turned into a rain-sceptic? Of course not! The rains have barely arrived, and it's time to chuck the sunscreen lotion back into my bag and think of graffiti to inscribe on the window-panes. Make me a rain-curtain, and you shall have half my kingdom. When I have one, that is.