How I Started To Love The Rains

It was raining heavily when I saw her for the first time and even heavier the day when I saw her the last time....she had laughed or was it just the rain I do not know...but even today whenever it rains and I close my eyes listening to the sounds of rains I can hear her soft angelic laughter somewhere in the distance.......

It was one of those years when we were supposed to think about studying and only studying. Any other thought that crossed our mind was considered an abominable sin. The incessant bombarding of physics, chemistry, math, and biology was at its full force. I still wonder how all of us survived it without getting our brains blown off.

It was somewhere in the middle of all this struggle with my studies was when I saw her for the first time. She was always there but I seldom noticed her. The fact is she never did allow anyone to notice her as much. A little shorter than me, she was always covered from head to toe in a black robe, which they called "burkha". The only time she ever did uncover her face was when she was inside the class. Still I never knew what she looked like. Partly because I could never get my eyes of the other beauties of the class and partly because of my lecturer was forever on the prowl to pounce on any student not paying attention to his incessant blabbering.

But things changed on a particular evening when I was asked to stay back by one of the teachers for having a discussion about my grades which were consistently average, much to his annoyance as he was also a family friend and I getting good grades was a matter of pride for him. There was a long discussion, or I would like to call it a monologue on why and how of my grades. I wouldn’t go too much into that, mostly because I don’t even remember what he said. I was as always blank during the entire extra lecture and closed it with a smile and an apology. When I moved out it was 6.30 and was getting dark with looming rain clouds. Cursing my luck I was just about to step out of the building when the classroom opposite mine opened and I saw her. I don't know if it was actually her beauty or seeing her without the veil for the first time made her more beautiful. I was standing right there and I guess she noticed me staring at her, which was rather obvious with my jaw dropped below normal, making her realize that her face is uncovered. She promptly put the veil back on her face, turned away and walked swiftly towards the main door. I kept looking at her till she was outside my line of vision. I walked home thinking only about that face and her eyes. She had light brown eyes. I wanted to tell everyone what I saw but soon realized that it won’t be such a great idea, given the fact that I had some of the century's brightest gossip mongers in my batch. I laid my mind to rest and went back home with a sense of pride to have seen something that probably no one in my batch would ever see.

I hated rains and on that particular day, though bright and sunny initially, it started raining heavily and continued for at least a couple of hours. The atmosphere was dull, making me doze off during the chemistry lecture much to the irritation of my hyper-alert lecturer. Finally the time had come to rush back home. I was still cribbing about the rain when I found out that I had forgotten my umbrella and jacket at home. All those who were wise enough to get their gears left and I was standing there all alone outside the class waiting for the Gods to show some mercy and let me go home. But I lost my patience after a few minutes and started walking down in the rain, very well aware that I'll catch a cold by the night and would be in for a good hour-long lecture on being irresponsible and how absent-minded I have always been. But somewhere I was happy that if I did catch a cold, I wouldn't have to attend these boring lectures. I was pulled out of this wonderful thought process when I heard a voice calling out my name. I was not sure from which direction the voice was coming so I kept rotating making it a very funny thing to see for the voice that was calling out to me. I heard a giggle and then turned around to see this girl covering her mouth with her hand while laughing. At first I didn't realize who it was. Then I saw those familiar honey-colored eyes. She held out the umbrella as she came next to me. I got into it and was a little uncomfortable as I had to bend a little to fit into it given the difference in our heights. But I didn't complain, as I was scared, to such an instant that I didn't utter a word. I wanted to ask her so many things, the first one being how she caught hold of my name as I was very well aware of my popularity in my class. We walked silently side by side almost halfway through the rains stopped. She folded the umbrella looked at me and said "See you tomorrow. Don't try to bunk the class because of a stupid cold." Saying this she walked into a different direction. I kept staring at her till I couldn’t see her anymore and that was when it struck me that I didn't know her name. That day I felt for the first time that whatever adjectives my Dad gave me was correct. A girl dropped me almost halfway to my home and I didn't even thank her and what's worse I don't know who dropped me.

The next day I went to the class with a slight cold. I could have bunked, but I wanted to see her again. I wanted to thank her and know what her name was. I had so many questions to ask. But to my dismay, she didn't turn up. I thought maybe she was down with a fever or something. A week passed and then a month but she was not to be seen. I was growing anxious and wanted to know what happened to her. It was almost after 3 months that the first news of her whereabouts came to me. It was during one of the breaks that I overhear a conversation. They were talking about some girl who was down with some serious illness and who lived near his house. Out of curiosity I intervened and asked him who he was talking about. He described the person and I knew it was her. He told me as a matter-of-factly that she developed some problem in her kidneys and is on constant bed rest for the past 3 months and would not need that book now. I didn’t hear anything more. I wanted to ask in detail but I knew it was going to raise a lot of suspicions

I didn’t know what was going on with me. I was not in love, I’m sure of that. But it felt bad to know she was in such a condition and I couldn’t do much about it. I always hated the sense of being helpless and now it was killing me. I just turned and walked out of the room. I looked at that door through which I saw her come out; when I saw her face for the first time. All those questions were still unanswered. As I stepped outside, it started raining. For the first time I didn’t hate it. It bought back memories of that day when I walked down with her.

Years passed by, she got away somewhere in the many layers of accumulated memories. But still, when it rains she comes back to my mind, with that soft angelic face and the honey-filled eyes. She is still unnamed and unrelated as I didn’t know what she was for me and somehow I like it that way.