愛雨者的自白
By Sredhanea Ramkrishnan
木沐 選 黃湘淇 注
Rain! Well…it’s just a word that denotes the water droplets that form due to condensation of water vapor in the atmosphere which then precipitate and pour down owing to higher density than air and the gravity of earth.
To any meteorologist, it’s just another thing to forecast, to categorize under convectional, cyclonic or orographic type. To lay men, it’s another hurdle that he has to face to reach his office on time, a chafe that gets his clothes all wet, a stupid response of nature that makes roads all puddly and dirty, most of all—a time when his immunity can’t save him from catching a cold. To him there are just two types of rains, the heavy ones and the drizzle.
But the “Rain”oholics don’t seem to agree to either classification.
Like our title suggests we are obsessed or rather addicted to RAINS. We are one of those babies born on a rainy day and wish that we even die on one. Rains are our highs and lows, our buckets of joy. Rain is our best friend and even our wing-man. It is our elixir—our Holy Grail. Let me just cut the chase, jump right to our rain nomenclature.
1. The Mother’s kiss type:
This is the type where a subtle dampness enhances an already chill breeze. The lush green leaves and the ready-to-blossom buds are kissed by dew drops. Every maiden around you is in a great mood as the fresh, mud-scented air fills up her lungs, adding a slight blush to her cheeks. This is one of those times that the nature’s best plowmen—earthworms, emerge out of the soil and get to work. They diet on the minerals of the soil and their gizzards end up churning them and defecating organic manure.
2. The picture perfect type:
This is the kind where the drizzles are to the minimum and do not cloud your DSLR lenses as you try capturing the perfectly formed rainbow above the horizon, birds nesting on tall trees shuddering their feathers or when a heavy spherical rain drop assumes a tear shape as it hangs down the tip of a leaf.
3. The get on the dance floor type:
This is that nostalgic type that gets you back to those childhood days when you jumped on a puddle splattering the muddy water on your brother’s new white shirt. There is a dub-step rhythm in the air and the toads are croaking high pitched melodies that get you to put on your dance shoes and let loose. Even the squiggly little tadpoles in the brown puddles seem to be swimming to the tunes.
4. That’s a relief type:
This is the most unpredictable type. The sun is scorching your skin and your sweat has seeped out through your layers of clothing and you feel like a sultry moron, cursing the weather under your breath. But like God read your mind, he sends you a quickie, a short cold shower restoring all your theistic beliefs.
5. The mission “clean earth” type:
This is my personal favorite . You doubt if you are being hosed down by a fire-truck. The drops aren’t the usual thin, prickly ones, they are huge blobs that could wear your make-up down in minutes. Your roof, the roads and even the slums get cleaned. All you have to do is get your car out of the garage and park it on the streets for a tax and tip-free wash.
6. Don’t you dare step out of your house type:
This is the type where not the actual rain but the storm that accompanies it makes it completely intolerable. The dark grey clouds bump their head against one another like full grown Alpine Ibexes fighting for a billy, resulting in eardrum incapacitating thunders and blinding, streaky lightening. You know if you step out of your houses, umbrellas are going to upturn and lose their purpose and your well pleated skirts are going to leave you impersonating Marilyn Monroe’s pose on “The Seven Year Itch”.
7. The gloom doom type:
This is the type when it’s been drizzling for days together. You wish that it actually gushes down like a water fall and gets it over with. This type of rains usually follows a terrible storm. Schools are shut, play grounds and parks look deserted. Even the street vendors are in no mood to scream out the USP of their products to the passersby. All you wish to do is pull down your shades, get under a quilt and hibernate as dull lightening occasionally illuminate your dark room. These are the rains that invigorate fungal spores that emerge out of the ground as doom shaped mushrooms.
8. And finally, the screw you earthlings type:
This is the type of rains that nature punishes the earth with when we try over-controlling and extinguishing its reserves. It’s the scariest of all. Storms uproot trees, rivers are flooded, oceans rise up and many lives are forsaken.
But, all said and done! The “Rain”oholics still cannot find anything more fascinating and soul-soothing than gazing out of the window on a rainy day, sipping a warm cup of coffee. With deforestation, increased pollution, global warming and sparse rains—We, the “Rain”oholics, are becoming extinct. Please do your part to save our sub-species and our idol “THE RAIN”.
