It was a memorable morning. When I started for my morning walk, Yamuna who was sitting outside with her cup of tea said that it’s drizzling slightly. It had been pretty hot and humid for last few days. She asked Harendra to give me the umbrella that I hate to carry. I believe if I carry umbrella, it will not rain. It’s inconvenient to if you are to carry back vegetables and milk. However, I had to yield and take it. It was a pleasurable walking. Only the number of enthusiast walkers was less. I used umbrella in my first round but then closed it as no one was using it. But as I came to my fourth round, I had to use the umbrella. The drizzle was getting good enough to drench me.

After I completed my regular shopping of milk and vegetables and returning, it started raining with intensity increasing as I was walking back for one and a half kilometers to my residence. It was a real pleasure to walk in rain perhaps after many months or years. Perhaps the schools these days don’t declare holiday for a rainy day. I saw a number of school going children alone, with mother, or with their grandfather waiting for their transportation.

I have a special liking for the rain since my childhood. I remember playing in the field and creating rivers, islands and oceans in my village. The love for rain has remained till date and so I was overwhelmed with joy today when I walked back leisurely in rain even with some weight of vegetables and milk packets in hand. The rain intensity reached peak when I entered the residence and Harendra came out for picking up the bags. All along the route I was lost in going through the memory lanes.

Rampall Joshi, IPS narrated to me one instance of Hindu Hostel where he was my roommate in Presidency College days in 1992 when he met me in New Delhi. I had forgotten that: One night when he got up, he didn’t find me in my bed. It was raining outside. He thought I would have gone to toilet. He slept again. But after sometime when he woke up, I was still not in bed in that dead night. It was still raining. He got worried, came out of bed, opened the door and walked out. He saw me sitting on the chair that I had pulled out in the balcony and watching it raining. He took me back to my bed.

Even during my Hindustan Motors days we were fond of walking in rain whenever we got the opportunity. Yamuna was equally enthusiastic about it and enjoyed. After the stressed factory duties, a long walk on the roads in the residential sectors with hardly any one present, used to be my distressing exercise. In rainy season I never waited in my office for the rain to stop for returning home.

While sitting in the lobby, we prayed the cloud god to go to the parched land of the country, be it Pipra or Madhukarpur or in hundreds and thousands of villages of eastern India where the farmers such as Alok and Pintoo are waiting eagerly for a rain for completing their paddy transplantation.

And pretty soon the rain stopped. Has it reached the destinations we prayed for?