I always assumed meteorologists study meteors. With rains lashing down on India, one presumes it must be the busiest season for employees of the Met department. So bad were the rains that news channels had to squeeze them in between the coverage of our Prime Minister’s visits to UAE and France.
Rains are often romanticised in our culture. Remember the rhyme ‘Rain rain, go away!’, in which we requested the rain to go to Spain? I only learnt much later that farmers need rain. And why Spain of all places? While India is grappling with tomato inflation, Spaniards play with tomatoes in the Tomatina festival! Rain is often used as an analogy for young love. Mani Ratnam and AR Rahman have conspired to convince us that the rains are beautiful. But that’s the thing about the rains - your appreciation depends on your social stratum. When you sit inside a car, the city looks like it just came out of a head-bath.
But for middle-class folks, the rains are a different tragedy altogether. Overflowing drains, clogged roads, and smushy hopes. Your chappals leave that trademark splash on your trousers. Your shoes are coated with mud, grime, and/or dung. Poets romanticise Petrichor - the smell of first rains. But for me, that smell is a warning to quickly rush back home. Maybe that’s why we don’t fear climate change. All the doomsday pictures look like just another Tuesday in Indian monsoons!
Rains also require seasonal purchases, like an umbrella. Every time I buy an umbrella, I pathologically end up losing it. In fact, I have lost more umbrellas than I have owned. Old people keep track of them because the pointy ends serve as walking sticks. But I have never been able to maintain an umbrella for more than a few weeks. Also, thanks to Karan Johar movies - too many umbrellas in one place makes me feel like someone has died.
And then there are raincoats! Every time I am stuck in the rain, I look up to the heavens like Bheeshma and pledge to buy one. But there are no popular brands of raincoats; you don’t see Kohli promoting raincoats. If anything, he is shown playing through thunderstorms to sell energy drinks. The only celebrity to wear a raincoat was Hrithik Roshan - as part of his Krrish costume. I finally found a raincoat on Amazon - and the brand ambassador was Dinesh Karthik! After his performance for RCB this year, it didn’t exactly inspire confidence. In the ad, he looked like he was carrying water for the rest of the team.
There are primarily two kinds of raincoats. You have the Krrish type – that looks cool and futuristic, but water leaks in from everywhere. The droplets enter every crevice in your body - making your kundalini rise and fall like a dystopian roller-coaster. The second kind is the Astronaut Raincoat – with a shirt, a pant, and a cap on top. This one is efficient, but you look like an out-of-work bomb diffuser with a bladder problem, leaking water everywhere you go.
The truth is, nobody has ever stepped out of their home thinking ‘It’s a beautiful day, let me buy an umbrella and a raincoat to go with it!’ And when the rains come, the rich sit back and write poems about it. The middle-class run helter-skelter, scurrying for shade and peace of mind. Like every year, I’ll probably hold off on buying a raincoat until the rains stop. When people advise you to save for a rainy day, they should also add - ‘And while you’re at it, pick up an umbrella and raincoat!’