RAIN...RAIN....RAIN... WooWeeee.....
I had been waiting under this tin shade, trying to get some protection from the rain. It was awesome... monsoon had arrived, baby! There were others with me. I hadn't expected it to rain so heavily. It was so sudden. Just a little while ago it was a clear sky and then a downpour like this one. To much of my dismay, my clothes were drenched and so I had to wait till it stopped raining. I had to go to the home and they wouldn't let me in like this!
I was on holiday... and worse... I was holidaying alone!. I turned towards the street. It was a beautiful scene out there!The heavy rain and the magnificent background of evergreen trees. That earthy aroma in the air was to die for. That is exactly what I needed at that time. I wanted a break from the ruckus and the number of tragedies I went through in recent past.
I did not have any interest in checking out the pretty girls.. I was there for relaxation... and girls have always been pain! I was staring at the clouds and how the rain drops fell on the bricked road and how the drop broke apart! I looked down on the road and amidst the black and white photograph came a bright saffron coloured flip flop. The feet were pretty and seemed to be swaying along with the wind. I looked up. The girl... there she was.! Perhaps the only girl whom I had seen there. Not that the town was short of girls... but she was the only one I saw properly. She had an umbrella which she closed and stood right next to me under the shade. Shamelessly, I kept looking at her.
Breaking the awkward silence, she said, "Do you mind drinking your tea??"
I felt embarrassed and said a very polite sorry! She paid no heed. I still tried looking at her through the side view. She had rain drops smudged all over her arm. Her finger nails were naked and bright pink. Her saffron flip flops had the prettiest feet.. only after my mother's though!
Somehow she got to know that I was still checking her out. So she asked, "You're a tourist, right?"
I nodded.
"Then why can't you people just respect us? We're being good to you and you're being cheap to us? Why? Is this how you will treat tourists in your own town, eh?"
I smiled and replied, "I'm really sorry. I did not mean to trouble you... I was jus(t)..."
"Whatever. You don't mean to.. but you certainly are!"
"I'm really.. extremely.. very sorry!"
"Hmmm...."
And the frown did not leave her forehead. Something about that frown was strikingly familiar. The way she frowned and said nothing but a "hmmm..."
And she looked at me with that familiar shock. She was always like that.
"No" said she and walked away. I stayed there dumbstruck as I watched her walking without the umbrella, drenched in rain and keeping her back to me.
I still do not know why that happened. I know it was her. In the wake of finding her again, and closer to God... hoping to find her..
Till then, I will keep collecting the rain.. She loves it.
