It is that time of the year when the rain starts to fall in Kerala. For me, rain holds a special place in my life. I was always fascinated by the rains from my child hood. My first memory of the rains is from the quarters of Co-Op Sugars where my father was working. Rain was a celebration. The scent of the virgin soil still lingers in my memory.
At that I time I was studying in the SCEMS school. My memory also takes me to those wonderful times long gone by of my school days. I used to carry an umbrella to the school. It was those umbrellas that at that time was not available in India with a lot of red flowers and also the switch to open the same. But I still remember the colorful umbrella that my fried used to carry to school which had all the colors of the rainbow. At that time, I was studying in the LKG but these memories still lingers deep in me even after so many years. These are memories that keeps one self worthy of life, memories of times long gone by when life was a little bit simpler.
At that time, we used to have landed agricultural lands in Kozhinjanpara, in Palakkad District. Rainy season was the time for planting the paddy with a dream of a strong down opour and a bumper harvest. These were the times when I would go with my father to those places. I still remember the laborers working in the strong down pour in the fields with the Bullock plowing the field. I used to enjoy the greenery that the rainy season brings. The green lush fields with the dirt where the cranes and king fisher comes to hunt for fish was a sight that still remains the in the recesses of my memory.
As I grew up, the memories changed a bit. My father procured me a rain coat, at that time a rarity. I always found the attire a little arduous and stiff to wear. I was a sort of in a strange attire in school and that also made me have revulsion to the rain coat. But there are also some other memories of the rain that I like to cherish including those long cycling in the strong down pour and welcoming all those rains much to the disgust of my mother. I also distinctively remember my father making a small wooden boat which I used to set adrift in the water flow along with all those tiny boats made of paper . Many of those boats disappeared and I always wondered where they had all gone. I never thought I will have such strong memory of all those little things in life.
Rainy season also brings to me many bad memories, memories I would rather forget. It was in one of those rainy days in June, 1989 that there was a serious jolt to the little world I was living on. I was awoken to the stark reality of life which can be rather ruthless to the man. The world that I was living came tumbling down on me and changed me for ever and made me what I am today.A season when I left the place I called home for ever and forced me to move to newer surroundings and newer opportunities. A rainy season that thought me that nothing is static in life and change is the only real truth in life. A rainy season when I first knew that the world I was living in until then was only made of glasses to be shattered by the throw of a small stone. A rainfall that changed the life of my parents for ever.
As I grew up, I now have mixed emotions about rain. While always relish those wonderful memories of my childhood that the rain brings to my memory, it also brings those bad dreams constantly reminding me of what I have lost in life and what I have to do to faught it out and be successful and be the best in by life. Life is never ending and it beacons me with a lot of newer opportunities and dreams. Life beacons me with the invitation to get to know newer friends and near and dear ones. But the the chill of the rainy season will always be dear to me and the memories that it brings soothing and at the sajme time painful deep in my heart.
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