Gurmeet Singh Bekraar
Fiery black clouds roared like an army of digruntled lions. Through the windscreen of my car I glanced up the sky. Clouds like frenzied buffaloes hovered around overhead from one end to another end. It was just a matter of few minutes when the clouds let loose its flying floodgates open and ‘dekhte dekhte’ a volley of rain drops hammered down my windscreen and rooftop of the car. The downpour had commenced downloading onto the earth.
My little son, pet named Harry, exploded in sheer excitement: Papa, papa rains. He promptly rolled down the window pane of the car. A cool breeze swished the interiors of the car with an earthy smell. Well, this is a story of a moment when I was cruising on a highway in a hilly terrain. The torrential flow of raindrops smudged my windscreen with a hazy mist. I slowed down my speed. It wouldn’t help. I decided to park my car on the edge of the road extension on a kutcha ground. And let Harry and myself enjoy the nature’s exquisite panorama unfurling before us.
“Barkha rani zara jham ke barso, dil mera bhar paa na paye jhoom kar barso…”, an old song rhymed its way out of my lips unmindfully. My son, a product of pampered genes, shoved open the car door and to ! bang leaped out of the car to splurge on the gushing falling waters. Before I could hold him back, my cell phone began ringing.
“Arre Gurmeet, what the hell you’re doing amidst this blazing showers on lonely road ?” my friend Ashok was on the line.
“How come you guessed so accurate ?”
“Oye pape.. I am just behind you”. His car came to halt beside mine.
“Te phir aaja bahir” I quickly jumped out of my car into the line of rain fire, dashed to friends car and literally pulled him out of his seat.
Like fathers like kids, it wasn’t late when his kids too joined the foray. It was just a moment out of this world. We were there unaware of what others might think, drenched from top to toe, enjoying the taandav nritya of the rain gods.
“Papa, play on some songs on rain.”Harry insisted.
“But my pen drive is full of old songs.” Harry plugged in some cable from his cell to the car CD player and it began playing current heart-throb song to the max of its pitch. “Balam pichkari to tune mujhe maari toh seedhi saadhi chchori sharabi ho gayee.”
“But Harry this peppy song is on Holi”.
“Come on papa, don’t be a dude.. just chill out.” The son had a point. Before my writer mind could confuse me further, I soaked to the bones, began feeling chilled out in real terms. We friends retrieved ourselves in the car as the kids began gyrating to the dulcet notes of the catchy song of a current movie. As the clouds gingerly overwhelmed the sky horizons, we elders from the car overviewed the whole scenario of nature fury intermingly sublime with the God’s little children.
Years ago, one summer in the month of July, in which rains have a constitutional right to cause chaos on earth, I along with my friend decided to escape the humid environs of the city. We went to Mcleodganj, a tiny yet cool place in the vicinity of Dharmshala. As we drove up the gradient from Dharamshala, dark clouds hovered all over the skylines. As soon as we reached Mcleodganj, a ferocious blizzard of heavy rains swept across the town. Stuck up right in the mid of the market in the car, we watched mutely the gushing water trickling all over the place from lanes, bylanes to the centre of the market. As the market flooded, my friend tried to sneak out of the car to fetch some snacks for the kids but the blitzkrieg of plunging rainfall coerced him to recoil to the car.
As the place is famous for Budhists and foreigners, from the front glass of our car we had the pleasure of watching a rain spurred vista in full 70 mm dimension ala a cinema screen, of people scurrying to cover themselves from the falling demons. A white foreigner darting by our vehicle suddenly lost his balance and flipped over the ground, I promptly fling open the car door and offered him to squeeze in which he thankfully turned down. The main square where we were held hostage by the flashing rains was an upbeat place, had number of swanky fast food eatery, ritzy hotels and snazzy small shops usually buzzing with tourist out for shopping and merry making. Few snooping eyes peered at us from the balcony of their upper hotel rooms, some gathered behind the glass door of thier restaurant to watch with wonder the hullabaloo on the street. Finally when the rains receded, I lamented within why it came to end so early.
Our Bollywood films are the best medium to have narrated the visual beauty of the monsoon at its crescendo. Many songs depicting courting of lovers are the most memorable moments of the films. I remember Amitabh Bachchan swirling recklessly in the showers with Smita Patil in Namak Halal with song on lips: Aaj rapat jayen to hamein na uthayeeo, hamein jo uthaiyao to khud bi rapat jayeeo.
Bheegi bheegi raaton me, aisi barsaton mein, kaisa lagta hai.. Rajesh Khanna romantically asking Zeenat Aman to express her emotions in a movie which transports one to a fantasy of wet passions is a landmark example of monsoon showers playing such a stellar role in sharing the warmth of two lovers.
The best ever expression of platonic love in the backdrop of falling showers, proffered so suave to a smiling beloved played by Moshumi Chatterji who amorously gestures in resonance with the flow of melodic words lip-sung by legendary Amitabh in a Mehandi function in a Hindi flick “Manzil”, where both the lovers are seated afar in a group of girls is a terrific portrayal of a sublime love being acknowledged ‘chori chori’ by the two as the songs stanzas finds its rhythm. “Rim jhim gire sawan, sulag sulag jaye mun; bheege aaj is mausam mein kaisi laagi ye aggan”.
Rains.. Ahaa rains.. why you are late like trains.. nowhere is the sight of end of my pains.. have a pity on the parched plains.. come on showers, fall like towers.. and engulf me like smothering hurricanes.. !!!
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