Rainy Days

I vividly remember those days back at Vikaasa in Madurai, when I was asked to write a composition on Rainy Day. I used to be really bad at writing essays then, in Class 4 and 5. Somehow, I could not get myself to be as creative or imaginative as Mrs.Menon expected me to be. One very popular topic used to be Rainy Day. What do you do on a rainy day?...

Let me think about all those rainy days I've been through so far. At Madurai, the year we moved into our newly built house, it rained cats and dogs and the entire locality was flooded. Obviously, power cuts ruled! Nothing to do, .. it would be me, my sister and my grandpa, playing a game of cards and enjoying the deadly silence around! However, i dont think I always enjoyed the rain. Power cuts annoyed me big time and somehow, wherever I've been, the EB guys dont seem to like me. Even later in my life, when I moved to Bangalore to work, there would be floor-sensitive and house-sensitive power cuts! Really gets on my nerves at times. In this context, I'm reminded of the prose "On Running After One's Hat" which we had in Class XII. If I'm not wrong, it was an essay by G.K.Chesterton on how, looking at the positive side of things, really helps one move forward. So, rainy days could be fun as well!

After school, when it was raining and the second-trip bus hadn't come yet, we would play and get drenched in the rain at times. There used to be a two-wheeler parking lot near the entrance of the school. That is where we took shelter after the drenching ritual. The best part, however, was, when we entered the bus. All seats would be completely wet. Our school buses were dilapidated in 2001-02(literally) and as such, there were only 4 or 5 seats that were sitt-able! And as the bus eventually moved, it would become even more fun with water dripping all over.

I've already mentioned in an earlier post of mine, about the rainy times in my hostel during my first year of engineering. We used to have classes at the Ramanujan Computing Center at 8.30 am ... It was October 2002 and it had been raining non-stop for almost 2 days. We still used to go to class, all the way from hostel, knowing pretty well that class would get cancelled! All just to have fun in the rain.

After I moved to Bangalore, the rainy days in my years have increased manifold. And I simply love it! At Adobe, it used to be great fun, looking at the rain from those high-glass windows. Last winter, it rained hailstones for a short while in the afternoon! The Adobe cafetaria is where the action is, and what fun we had enjoying the rain!

And now at the IIM campus. It seems to rain even more. Last Monday, it rained almost the whole day. Luckily, the one class we had also got rescheduled. I sat to read a book, after a really long gap. After the rains, I took a long walk around the campus. It was just breath-taking. The road was filled with those december flowers ( I dint know we had those trees on campus) and it was thoroughly refreshing. It's enchanting to walk around the campus at earthly hours, sometimes I'm forced to do that at unearthly hours too. Summers had just got over at IIM B and everyone was rejoicing. But this week, we're back to our quizzes and submissions. Surprise quizzes dont surprise us anymore! We have become attuned to the worst things that can happen in our academic lives here. Or are we yet?.. I really think there's more in the offing!

Would I be able to write a better Rainy Day composition now? Guess I should write one and send it to Mrs.Menon!