January rain





    As the monsoon arrived I spotted a few earthworms in the tilled soil, got rid of the weed, watched the white roses droop with the weight of raindrops on them till they bent to an apprehensive breaking angle and then I go right back into the house because the cold was not for me and the rains were turning into an everyday affair, This was in 2020. The climbers, cabbages, cauliflower, grape vines, bananas, roses, grass and weed are did grow fervently nonetheless. The tomatoes had paused growing tall, the seeds sowed weren’t to be seen taking any form of shape into above the ground and the bulbs, especially onions, I was afraid had probably started rotting underground. While the occasional stirring winds tore down glossy sheets of banana leaves, the peas I secretly dug into the earth probably got washed away in the rain like many a pollen did and the bees had gone into hibernation out of the blue. All this happened a few months ago and the plants got back on their feet with the arrival of a brief break from the monsoon. The past year starting from July felt like one long monsoon phase. 

It’s 2021 now and another cycle of rainfall has begun. Mother trimmed off the rose shoots a little too much so now I will be looking forward to young scarlet leaves, that’s the thing about rose plants, the new growth is soft and red and overtime the leaves turn semi-leathery in texture. The 12-year old gardener in me used to think it was magical and she continues getting excited at the sight of red leaves transforming to green ones to this day. A very simple phenomenon that meant and means a lot to me and holds a sort of nostalgic power over me. 

I’m overjoyed at the thought of how the rose shoots will have multiplied double or triple their size and new shoots will have sprung into air unassumingly to make a lovely surprise when the rains will have passed far beyond us. I’ve never experienced rains during January. It feels nice but only because the Sun peaks out occasionally warming up the air and the soil although the plants would like him to stay a bit longer and fight the ravenous clouds before succumbing to nightfall and rise to another couple days of sunlight playing peekaboo until what seems to be the trailing breadcrumb monsoon exits like how we all are hoping the COVID-19 would too. But hold that thought, I hear my mother read from her phone about a new virus in Africa. If this were a movie, I would pause and raise my fist to the sky dramatically and ask “where is your moderation?”. I wish I could ask the same question to whoever is in charge of keeping the global disease release registry in check. That may or may not be a reference to one of the several conspiracy theories circling around the minds of netizens currently, or have they grown immune to the theories and have let their political opinions grow lukewarm overtime? Have “we”? 

Even mother says this year has seen the most unusually recurring and sporadic rainfall pattern in Vellore that she’s seen in a long long time. Maybe this is how the monsoons have always been, overflowing with water, replenishing the groundwater table until industrialisation sucked it dry in the years that followed into the 80’s and 90’s and maybe due to the virus this year the earth did in fact heal a little. Maybe the new normal comes with bouts of petrichor in air and regression into the times when the now patched lands were rich and brimming with flora. And hey, rain away, let’s see if the dahlias that I thought were drying would grow.


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