Looking out at the rain from the balcony, I was wondering how people carry on with their lives in the rain season over her... Here I am, sitting cooped up in the cozy confines of my apartment on a lazy sunday morning. I tell myself I am not going anywhere till the sun comes out. I again remind myself that it might take another 2 months for that to happen.... I cannot remain cooped up all that while. So life must go on despite the downpour, the drizzle, the thunder and lightning. And it does go on as usual. Its life as usual for the people with a minor difference; you just have to keep an umbrella ready with you at all times. When in Bangalore, sometimes it used to rain all of a sudden and I would be the only person in the whole town with an umbrella ready. The Kerala climate had taught me to keep an umbrella ready, come rain or shine. I would always have it in my bag. Bangaloreans consider it a kind of blasphemy to carry an umbrella with you. If it rains, they just walk off the rain or take shelter under the next shop till the rain peters out. But in Kerala, rains are of a different kind.... It can go on pouring for the whole day with waxing and waning in between but never stopping, you must be a fool to go out without an umbrella!
Rain is such an integral part of Kerala life that we have poetry, films, songs, dramas, stories and what not based on the rain. In my small memory itself, I can recollect 2 recent movies with the mallu name for rain "mazha" in it. There are numerous film songs based on the varied moods of the rain. Our movies are replete with rain set pieces. Romances bud out in the rain (remember the 'rain dances'), tragedies meet with a grizzly end (bleeding to death in the rain at the hands of the villain), new life begins (impoverished other giving birth on the road in the pouring rain on a pitch dark night). Even a male and female sharing an umbrella is of much consequence!! Now I even remember one old TV serial called "Oru kudayum, kunju pengalum " (One umbrella and my little sister!!)
Now I remember walking to the school wading through knee deep water in torrential rain one day. What happened was that the temple pond which is midway on the way to school overflowed due to incessant rains in the previous night. The water from the pond had no where to go and it simply overflowed on to the road. All the people had to wade though it with their saris and pants pulled up to their knees that day....
Rain is such an integral part of Kerala life that we have poetry, films, songs, dramas, stories and what not based on the rain. In my small memory itself, I can recollect 2 recent movies with the mallu name for rain "mazha" in it. There are numerous film songs based on the varied moods of the rain. Our movies are replete with rain set pieces. Romances bud out in the rain (remember the 'rain dances'), tragedies meet with a grizzly end (bleeding to death in the rain at the hands of the villain), new life begins (impoverished other giving birth on the road in the pouring rain on a pitch dark night). Even a male and female sharing an umbrella is of much consequence!! Now I even remember one old TV serial called "Oru kudayum, kunju pengalum " (One umbrella and my little sister!!)
Now I remember walking to the school wading through knee deep water in torrential rain one day. What happened was that the temple pond which is midway on the way to school overflowed due to incessant rains in the previous night. The water from the pond had no where to go and it simply overflowed on to the road. All the people had to wade though it with their saris and pants pulled up to their knees that day....
