For half an hour before the rains came, the earth had been severely molested by a dust storm. The storm had ripped and torn ferociously as if it was trying to gouge out the earth from earth itself. It had scooped up dust and pulled, bent and twisted the vitals to exhaust them with its strength into apparent surrender. It was akin to the lovemaking of a man who came to bed seized with the frenzy of heat. Like the storm preceding the rain, he lashes and tears, roughly seizing the women in his arms not for love but for pelting violence on her. And like the angry sky, he lets loose the life-giving waters as he could not contain them any longer. He would have surely withheld them if it were not so. He had grumbled and groaned with resentment, and the anger over giving was palpable.

The earth had, however, borne the tempest quietly. She had not joined issue with the sky and had let it expend himself. Perhaps she knew that the swirling winds and the sharp blinding flashes of lightening would pass. What would remain was the elixir that would give sustenance to another life. Therefore, after the storm had passed and the earth had been drenched, she had gathered herself again to hold on to the sprout. This would be hers alone— sprung from her womb and rooted in her earth.

The monsoon sows what the earth reaps. The barrenness of the plain is seeded with the lushness of green as the breeze caresses the airy bags of water and applies its moist fingers gently along the heat-wilted curves of tendrils. A new leaf is born, a colourful bloom springs forth and under the dark brooding canopy happy hectic activity begins afresh. As the showers startle and awaken from summer slumber, drains choke with excitement, tiny rivulets reinvent their dry beds, birds begin to sing and the deer once again looks longingly at the doe. On a tree branch, a soaked monkey looks skywards perplexed —who turned on the shower? he seems to ask himself. A clap of thunder scares him of the question.

The luscious drops implant as they soothe and rainwater cuts prickly heat in more ways than one. Grandmother had her own recipe of curing children of the scratchy feeling years before prickly heat talcums were invented. Days before the rains came, she would soothe the broods’ irritation by assuring them that the ‘bad days’ were nearly over. And, as the clouds gathered over the horizon, she would go over the instructions like a drill- master. "Don’t rush into the water as it starts to pour. Wait for five minutes, otherwise all the dirt of the sky will settle into your pores and make them itchier. Let it rain and drain away for some time. Then, when I tell you, go out and cure yourself." The children were ordered into their underwears and lined up near the staircase to the roof. The younger ones had the option of bathing in their birthday suits. However, it was grandmother who had the final say on who was young enough to streak. Girls were never thought to be young at any age.

As the heavens opened and minutes ticked by, grandmother would make a full inspection of each child’s body. "Your chest is full of prickly heat and your back has red ants crawling all over. So after five minutes of your dancing and prancing around, you lie flat on your back, while you lie on your stomach. Let the rain wash the area fully. And don’t move!" The children would go out and yell and scream with gay abandon. Grandmother, however, never ventured out of her shade. Instead, she would rain instruction from her shelter in a voice that dared thunder to speak. The children would be face up or face down on the cemented roof as she willed them, much like the kebabs that she heated on her giant tawa—- flipping that one and moving the other away from direct heat.

After satisfying herself that the children had sufficiently exposed their affected parts to curative rain, grandmother would descend to the kitchen. A hot cup of tea with adrak, elaichi and a dash of black pepper was mandatory for the shower takers. Onion and potato pakoras with pudine ki chatni, however, provided the real incentive for gulping down the hot brew. Miraculously after the drenching and the eating, prickly heat appeared like a distant dream to be raked up only when the children again officially wanted to stand under the heavenly shower. On any of such occasions, grandmother would suddenly change the menu. She would ask the children to sit around the chulha as she deep fried namakparas to go with fresh and hot dal moth. Pathod ke pakore, bhis (lotus stem) ki chaat, or mal puas with rabri were her other delicacies. At times, she would come up with the skin of muskmelons that she had peeled during the summer season and carefully dried. Stir fried with namak and mirch to taste, it made a crunchy treat on a rainy day.

The rain-softened earth provided its own playground. Slush ruled out hockey or cricket or even gilli- danda. So the children of the mohalla would procure a large knife from the nearest kitchen. The idea was startlingly simple: throw the knife from shoulder height and make it stick in the mud. The rules— if the knife doesnn’t stick, the player is out. If it does, he gets chance after chance as he moves from one spot to another sticking the knife along the wet patches in the lane down to the open fields far away. The distance covered from the starting point to where the knife finally fell flat was the paddi route. The opponent had to cover it on one leg. Any number of players could participate, though at least two were required to start the game.

Simpler still was playing with earthworms and snails. Egging sleepy snails to win races consumed hours of a rainwashed day. Earthworms, on the other hand, made an interesting sight as they twisted and turned and finally died as salt was sprinkled on them. They could also be cut up gingerly with a penknife; an activity that was labelled dissection in biology classes years later. But the jhoola in the verandah or on the branch of a mango tree was for the girls. Boys evinced interest in it only when they wanted to see skirts flying — a momentary diversion from their earthworm -hunting and knife-sticking thrillers.

Rains also meant indulgence. Spicy, tangy and hot were the flavours of the season. Like the water flowing on the streets inundating everything in sight, submergence in the celebration of the senses seemed natural. As such, food, drink and passion appeared to erode the embankments of moderation. The grey ogre in the sky commanded fulfillment by causing the breeze to sow goose pimples on mortal skins. It whetted the appetite and infused languor into the mood. A light shiver skipped down the spine. The warmth of another breath on the face could only contain it. The paper boat of passion floated down the freshly erupted native streams; carried swiftly at first by the rapidly swelling current and then losing balance as it turned a corner and joined the madly rushing mainstream. The fate of the paper boat was not unknown; the pleasure of floating it was known. Its momentary sailing thrilled as much as its helpless drowning.

The heady ambience made longevity ephemeral. Only the moment survived. Each caterpillar had turned into a butterfly and malati, kadam, sarja, arjuna, ketaki and raat ki rani burst their buds to envelop the night’s contours with their fragrance. The gentle purvaiya had unsettled the sultriness of the day again and again and the sun had to dig away layer of clouds to peer at the earth from its temporary skylight. The tall palm nodded at it happily as the cotton masses in the sky rushed to close the gap once again.

The velvety moistness of the monsoon wind made many hearts smart with perplexing desires. On a rain-soaked afternoon when the dark elephants had stomped about playfully in the skies and had stamped out the light, the shape in the neighbour’s window had become suddenly desirable. A week before, the heat and the humidity had made her out to be a melting mass. But as the wind billowed her duppatta, ran fingers through her hair, cooled her skin so it glowed and made her laugh unabashedly as she reached for the clouds with every push of her pelvic muscles at the jhoola, she appealed like a dew-soaked bud. He caught her eye just when the bright bolt from the clouds had made her look at the boy next door in a new light. Distant thunder had rumbled frighteningly near.

The shade on the rooftop was an appropriate rendezvous. While the household had been lulled to sleep by the steady pitter-patter of rain, he climbed the ledge to reach her. Curtained from prying eyes by loosely bound silken watery threads, they silently exchange promises to last a lifetime. He had wanted to caress away the stray drops of dew that had blown in with the wind and had settled on her cheek, but he couldn’t trust himself to touch her. Another time, another day perhaps when it rained again and they were together once more.