Cold rains and warm memories

 

I stand beside the bulging stream,

As muddy waters flow,

Though clouds have ruled the week for now,

Inside, there is a glow

A glow from vintage memories

As the mind, it wanders free - 

Warm and sweet, intense as well

Served like a cup of tea

Then, every raindrop, cold and hard

Brings back a shard of time,

From the Garo hills to the Western ghats,

The winds begin to chime

A little boy in a raincoat blue,

Walks in hail to school,

While a grown up soul then climbs in rain

To splash in a cascade pool

He ambles in the deodar hills,

The Pelling rains are cold,

Through clouds, the Kanchenjunga squints

With vows of a sunset gold

From backwaters to the coral isles,

The echoes come again,

Sajan, Shimla, Sindhudurg - 

A common thread of rain

 

The worth of moments sunk in time

Are best judged as a memory

A drop of rain ushers a storm,

This strong the past can be   

My friends call me, it’s time to leave

The rains, they say, are bleak - 

Sieve the past, I whisper then

It has the warmth you seek…

It has been raining non-stop here for a week now, the bushfires from last year having been replaced with warnings of flood. Despite the deluge, the earth feels calmed, and there is a sense of rejuvenation and freshness in the air. To get a break from indoor exile, I went to the Parramatta river today - the placid, languorous stream was replaced with a turgid and swollen river, muddy and swirling with memories. There, standing in the rains, the river in the park reminded me of a small village in Maharashtra - Sajan, where a bunch of friends decided to cross a river in the rains. Even the knee deep waters had a strong current, but crossing the river seemed breaking an invisible barrier to some wooded fairy lands, for we entered a lush green forest complete with a hidden waterfall gushing in the rains. What then - Like a domino effect, the rivers and rains brought back monsoon memories of which there is no end. Be it in the Konkan hills of the west, the Cardamom hills in the south or the eternal Himalayas, my favourite, I can go back and dive into my pool of memories for hours. 

The rains came hard, but they felt warm in the memories they agitated. I smiled then, realising that the true worth of moments are realised when we look back at them as memories. 

Let the times roll on then - once in a while, it’s worth looking back, to filter and distil the best, and sip them as musings of gold...

21st March, 2021

Cover Image: Monsoons in Bhandardara, photo by Prashant