It rained that evening. A warm, welcoming rain punctuated by big, bulbous drops, uncharacteristic of the city, atypical of the month. The sky was overcast—a veil of grey, grim and continuous, hung above. K, secure under the confines of a nondescript shed by the road, carefully inspected the contents of his wallet and then proceeded to check his mobile phone and wallet. Content, he relaxed slightly: not a drop of water on them. He looked up at the sky and, at once, his eyebrows re-knit, his mouth stiffened—there wasn’t a trace of blue. It was not a good sign. He didn’t like the rain, not one bit, not in the city. It made the roads stink: the whole place smelt and felt like an open railway toilet, the drains overflowed, the water stagnated making the traffic come to a standstill, the pigeons, that dotted the evening sky flying in pretty patterned flocks, hid under buildings, afraid of the sky’s sorrow and the earth was muddy, ugly-brown.
And then he saw a sight that made him, instinctively, click his tongue, and shake his head in disapproval, from side to side, maybe a little too obviously: it was a man, not much older than he, walking leisurely, hands in his pockets, whistling an old film song, drenched like he had just swum half across the Arabian Sea and then realized he had forgotten to take off his clothes.
“Quite out of place, isn’t it? This rain?” he asked cheerfully, approaching the shed, looking at K.
K looked away and pretended like he hadn’t heard the man.
But the man seemed to be possessed by the devil, for by the time K turned around, he was standing by him, wiping his glasses with his shirt, not really noticing that a wet cloth would do little to improve the condition of the glasses. He smiled broadly, extended a soppy hand, and said:
“Murugan”
With a wary, disdainful look at the outstretched hand, K, doing some quick thinking, folded his palms and said:
“Namaste. I’m K”
“Why, why, why! Aren’t we a contradiction? A traditional greeting, but a post-modern, single initial for a name!”
Stunned by the character judgment based solely on a gesture and a sentence, K retorted:
“I’m a practical man. I don’t like wet hands and I don’t disclose personal information to complete strangers”
The stranger’s face fell and he said, his hands back in his pockets:
“I was only joking. I’m sorry. Maybe I was hasty”
“That’s okay” K replied, a little gruffly, though inside he felt triumphant for a reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
And they fell silent with K wondering if his life had come to this, celebrating victories in little ego battles with random men and the man, lost, staring into the rain, but his mind elsewhere, a smile from a different time planted on his lips.
“Beatuiful” he said, eventually.
“Eh?” said K.
“November rain. Correction: Warm November rain”
K did not want to concur and lie, nor did he want to disagree and debate, so he ended up making a noise that sounded like a soft fart. The man was momentarily startled, for the sound was alien in a civil conversation, but mistaking it for some digestive problem, went back to smiling dreamily and said:
“It rained like this, back in 1984, through November— warm, fat drops, echoing against the roofs of buildings and the windshields of cars”
“Yes, I quite remember—it was one of the worst months of my life—my bloody scooter wouldn’t start and I had to take the bus, which took a long, circuitous path. Always late for work—I nearly lost my job”
“I” said the man, still smiling, “on the other hand, was out of work. And in love. Ah, those were the days”
K rolled his eyes, but the man was not one to be distracted. Still staring dreamily into the distance, he continued:
“She was doing her degree in the Arts College for Girls and I would wait, for hours together, at her college gate, to get a glimpse of her. I was, after all, out of work and had all the time in the world. And when she was done with college, I would follow her, everywhere she went—up till the gate of her house, to the movie hall, to the market—like a faithful dog or, better still, Mary’s little lamb”
“Didn’t she call the police?”
“No, she didn’t. Which means” he said, cracking his knuckles, “she didn’t disapprove, but she didn’t approve either—if she did, then maybe we could have got somewhere”
“Did you even talk to her?” K asked, with a smirk on his face.
“Oh yes, many times. But usually about the weather, or polite enquiries about each others’ health or the price of onions—a sentence here, a comment there—they meant the world to me. And one day,” he said, and broke off, his voice choking as he looked at the relentless rain wistfully and continued, “And one November morning, it poured, as always; but, unlike always, I spotted her underneath a tree, just like I saw you, umbrella-less and cursing the rain. And I never carry an umbrella—never—but that morning, my grandmother—bless her beautiful soul— in typical grandmotherly fashion, gave me her incisor-less, paan-stained grin, thrust the umbrella in my hand and said, a little wisely, a little mischievously: take this, who knows, it may just come in handy! And come in handy, it did!”
“So you both walked under one umbrella, with your arm around her shoulder?” K asked haughtily, although he was curious.
“Of course not—this is 25 years ago in middle-class India: you really think people wouldn’t talk if that had happened? People would talk even now, in some localities. But, what happened is the reason why I love November rain—I gave her my umbrella and told her to use it and I followed her, keeping a polite distance. She threw back shy, grateful and sorry glances at me, at periodic intervals and I could feel myself floating, in a state of pure joy, not caring about the wild rain, or the warm gusts of wind. She made my day. And many, many days to come”
“Are you a poet?” K asked, for he was always good at these things.
“Its funny you ask, because you are nearly right—I am a painter. You should come to my exhibitions some time. But in those days, I was, would you believe it, a pickpocket. I always had good hands, you know—and its funny the things that people do when they are desperate. I always mailed the wallet and its contents back to their owners though, except for the money, of course. I had little use for anything else”
And K suddenly stiffened, checked his pockets to make sure his wallet was there, and then, walked right ahead, into the rain. Having gone a few metres, he paused, turned around and shouted, through the sheets of rain that separated them:
“The college she went to—your .. um .. muse—it was called Gandhi Arts College for Girls, right?”
“Yes” the man said, very surprised.
K reached home late that evening. He rang the bell twice, for he was dripping wet and his mind was occupied. He heard his wife’s footsteps and then a series of clicks, as latch after latch opened; finally, she swung open the door, smiled, a tad surprised, and showed him the front of her palm as if to say: wait, and turned around to go back inside.
“What’s this sudden thirst for adventure today?” she hollered, as he heard drawers roll open.
“Oh nothing—I just wanted to get back in time for the match” he yelled back.
She brought back a towel and wiped dry his hands, his face, his hair.
“Did you miss me?” he asked her.
She was a little taken aback: it was a question he hadn’t asked for years, decades even.
“A little longer and I would have run away with my pickpocket!” she said mischievously—quoting from memory, for it was a little dialogue that they used to play often during the early days of their marriage.
“Pickpocket?” he said, in mock-anger, and then swooped down to peck her on her cheek, sending it a shade darker than brick-red, and whispered in her ear:
“Maybe we should change that dialogue—he’s a painter now”
And then he saw a sight that made him, instinctively, click his tongue, and shake his head in disapproval, from side to side, maybe a little too obviously: it was a man, not much older than he, walking leisurely, hands in his pockets, whistling an old film song, drenched like he had just swum half across the Arabian Sea and then realized he had forgotten to take off his clothes.
“Quite out of place, isn’t it? This rain?” he asked cheerfully, approaching the shed, looking at K.
K looked away and pretended like he hadn’t heard the man.
But the man seemed to be possessed by the devil, for by the time K turned around, he was standing by him, wiping his glasses with his shirt, not really noticing that a wet cloth would do little to improve the condition of the glasses. He smiled broadly, extended a soppy hand, and said:
“Murugan”
With a wary, disdainful look at the outstretched hand, K, doing some quick thinking, folded his palms and said:
“Namaste. I’m K”
“Why, why, why! Aren’t we a contradiction? A traditional greeting, but a post-modern, single initial for a name!”
Stunned by the character judgment based solely on a gesture and a sentence, K retorted:
“I’m a practical man. I don’t like wet hands and I don’t disclose personal information to complete strangers”
The stranger’s face fell and he said, his hands back in his pockets:
“I was only joking. I’m sorry. Maybe I was hasty”
“That’s okay” K replied, a little gruffly, though inside he felt triumphant for a reason he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
And they fell silent with K wondering if his life had come to this, celebrating victories in little ego battles with random men and the man, lost, staring into the rain, but his mind elsewhere, a smile from a different time planted on his lips.
“Beatuiful” he said, eventually.
“Eh?” said K.
“November rain. Correction: Warm November rain”
K did not want to concur and lie, nor did he want to disagree and debate, so he ended up making a noise that sounded like a soft fart. The man was momentarily startled, for the sound was alien in a civil conversation, but mistaking it for some digestive problem, went back to smiling dreamily and said:
“It rained like this, back in 1984, through November— warm, fat drops, echoing against the roofs of buildings and the windshields of cars”
“Yes, I quite remember—it was one of the worst months of my life—my bloody scooter wouldn’t start and I had to take the bus, which took a long, circuitous path. Always late for work—I nearly lost my job”
“I” said the man, still smiling, “on the other hand, was out of work. And in love. Ah, those were the days”
K rolled his eyes, but the man was not one to be distracted. Still staring dreamily into the distance, he continued:
“She was doing her degree in the Arts College for Girls and I would wait, for hours together, at her college gate, to get a glimpse of her. I was, after all, out of work and had all the time in the world. And when she was done with college, I would follow her, everywhere she went—up till the gate of her house, to the movie hall, to the market—like a faithful dog or, better still, Mary’s little lamb”
“Didn’t she call the police?”
“No, she didn’t. Which means” he said, cracking his knuckles, “she didn’t disapprove, but she didn’t approve either—if she did, then maybe we could have got somewhere”
“Did you even talk to her?” K asked, with a smirk on his face.
“Oh yes, many times. But usually about the weather, or polite enquiries about each others’ health or the price of onions—a sentence here, a comment there—they meant the world to me. And one day,” he said, and broke off, his voice choking as he looked at the relentless rain wistfully and continued, “And one November morning, it poured, as always; but, unlike always, I spotted her underneath a tree, just like I saw you, umbrella-less and cursing the rain. And I never carry an umbrella—never—but that morning, my grandmother—bless her beautiful soul— in typical grandmotherly fashion, gave me her incisor-less, paan-stained grin, thrust the umbrella in my hand and said, a little wisely, a little mischievously: take this, who knows, it may just come in handy! And come in handy, it did!”
“So you both walked under one umbrella, with your arm around her shoulder?” K asked haughtily, although he was curious.
“Of course not—this is 25 years ago in middle-class India: you really think people wouldn’t talk if that had happened? People would talk even now, in some localities. But, what happened is the reason why I love November rain—I gave her my umbrella and told her to use it and I followed her, keeping a polite distance. She threw back shy, grateful and sorry glances at me, at periodic intervals and I could feel myself floating, in a state of pure joy, not caring about the wild rain, or the warm gusts of wind. She made my day. And many, many days to come”
“Are you a poet?” K asked, for he was always good at these things.
“Its funny you ask, because you are nearly right—I am a painter. You should come to my exhibitions some time. But in those days, I was, would you believe it, a pickpocket. I always had good hands, you know—and its funny the things that people do when they are desperate. I always mailed the wallet and its contents back to their owners though, except for the money, of course. I had little use for anything else”
And K suddenly stiffened, checked his pockets to make sure his wallet was there, and then, walked right ahead, into the rain. Having gone a few metres, he paused, turned around and shouted, through the sheets of rain that separated them:
“The college she went to—your .. um .. muse—it was called Gandhi Arts College for Girls, right?”
“Yes” the man said, very surprised.
K reached home late that evening. He rang the bell twice, for he was dripping wet and his mind was occupied. He heard his wife’s footsteps and then a series of clicks, as latch after latch opened; finally, she swung open the door, smiled, a tad surprised, and showed him the front of her palm as if to say: wait, and turned around to go back inside.
“What’s this sudden thirst for adventure today?” she hollered, as he heard drawers roll open.
“Oh nothing—I just wanted to get back in time for the match” he yelled back.
She brought back a towel and wiped dry his hands, his face, his hair.
“Did you miss me?” he asked her.
She was a little taken aback: it was a question he hadn’t asked for years, decades even.
“A little longer and I would have run away with my pickpocket!” she said mischievously—quoting from memory, for it was a little dialogue that they used to play often during the early days of their marriage.
“Pickpocket?” he said, in mock-anger, and then swooped down to peck her on her cheek, sending it a shade darker than brick-red, and whispered in her ear:
“Maybe we should change that dialogue—he’s a painter now”
