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In a parallel universe (when it rains)

23/2/2012

11 Comments

 
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It is a girl. She is walking down an uneven path on the barren hillside, placing her feet carefully on the loose stones. Her thin brown fingers are curled around some ferns with white spore smeared undersides that she uses to stamp Christmas tree shapes on her skin. She places a leaf at the back of the hand clasping the bunch of green fronds and uses the other palm to give it a hard slap. Peeling the smashed leaf off, she smiles at the white print left behind. She turns left to enter a gap in the rough undulating stone wall that she has been following all along. A house stands there - stout and serene under an old walnut tree that has spread its arms out like a giant brocolli. The house is made of grey uncut stone slabs and has a faded red roof with the paint peeling off in places. Someone has carried large boulders to the roof and used them to pin it down so that the wind will not blow it away. This is the roof that the rain drops make music on on those stormy nights when she lies in bed with an oil lantern near her pillow, so engrossed in her reading that she doesn’t hear the wind scream.
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Every afternoon, the woman with the baby in her stomach sits on the steps outside the small hut and watches the opera. It starts with the hills in the distance change colour from green to grey as the dark clouds, pregnant with rain, smash against them to dunk the place in a downpour that clogs the earth and sends the snakes slithering out of their holes. If snakes could have memories (which she has been told, they don’t) she guesses those would be different from hers. Twice she has heard the wet grass rustle and caught a glimpse of a shiny black tail even as she sat with her feet just outside the protective umbra of the roof, watching the rain drops slide down the bare skin and trickle into the clefts between her toes. The unhappy ones sometimes slip off the arch of her ankle and  kill themselves by jumping into the brown muddy depth below. For an onlooker from the narrow tarred road, that turns just beyond the hut and leads to a wooden gate where the locals live in their stilt houses with pigs squealing underneath, she is a woman getting her feet wet in the rain. They won’t see a girl traipsing down the uneven path to her grandmother’s house that has a faded tin roof, pinned down by stones so that the wind can’t blow it away. Outside there would be a walnut tree that has spread its branches out and drops green fruit on the ground. These, the little girl will pick up and crush under a stone to reach the soft white pulp inside that she will pluck out with her fingers and place in her mouth, letting the bitterness of the green seed spread on her tongue. 
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Her hair is streaked with grey in places where the colour has faded and when she smiles the fine lines around her eyes deepen into furrows that weren’t there some years back. She has told herself they add character to her face and they no longer bother her when she looks into the bathroom mirror. It doesn’t rain much where she lives but today the sky is dark with possibility. She leaves what she is doing and goes out into the balcony to hold her hands out for the drops that will splatter on her palm. She tilts her face to the sky and feels the water trail down her nose and make her eyelashes heavy with its weight. She tastes a raindrop and watches the others splash the slim leaves of the bamboo thicket where the parrots live. The rain still puts a spell on her with its sounds and smells and  tricks of the trade that make mist appear from around the bend in the road and a heady earthy fragrance fill the air. Only lately she has realized though that it doesn’t take her back to the stone house on the hillside anymore. That memory has been stored away in some invisible drawer that she has to pull open to reassure herself that it is still there. It has been replaced by another that now pulls her by the shirt sleeve and takes her back to a little hut on a curving tar road with moss green hills in the distance and a generator-lit street light in front that stains the purple night with a circle of pale yellow to entice the bugs. That is where the little kids with shiny black eyes gather each evening to pick bugs that they carry home in transparent polythene bags for their mothers to fry with the dinner rice.

If she turns her head just a little to the left, she will be able to see through the glass window, the little boy who is reading a manga comic on the computer, his plump fingers curled around the mouse. Some day she will teach  him to make fern patterns on his arm. Today, she just walks in leaving wet foot prints on the floor.

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11 Comments
Mahendra
23/2/2012 06:45:10 pm

Excellent piece (as always!)

Since I seem to be the first one to comment, I will allow myself to pontificate a little....

When I experienced my first rainy season in Japan (outside Tokyo), I was struck by the powerful rush of memories of my childhood (going to school in Lansdowne). As I thought more about it, I realized that the trigger was the smell that the wet moss on the stones generated (possibly combined with the smell of mist / fog). Some more research revealed that this is actually a scientifically documented phenomena - called the Proust Phenomena (if you are curious you can click here http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/9042019/Smells-can-trigger-emotional-memories-study-finds.html).

Sorry, I am being the KJ again, but just wanted to point out the scientific reasoning behind the association of rain with memories :-)

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Sri
23/2/2012 11:31:24 pm

Kahin yeh aap to nahin... More later, I promise :)

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ather
24/2/2012 01:23:14 am

Bachpan key din bhi kya din they...

wah wah Rachna, you have taken us all down memory lane. My childhood in Nakuru spent curled up reading Famous Five adventures while the rain thundered outside creating rivulets outside my window from where we floated paper boats....

You have captured the details of an aspect of life's journey so well in your inimitable style. Thank you so much for the memories...

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Prithvi
24/2/2012 10:30:58 am


There are flashbacks. And then there are parallel universes. Though the difference may appear subtle superficially - they are indeed poles apart. Wonderful idea, brave attempt and great execution !

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BIG B JB
24/2/2012 03:38:06 pm

wow...rains always reminds us the lost childhood...that innicence which has drifted away with the winds of time...more responsibilities...but whenever we go back to our childhood...its only rains which gives the feelings of lost innocence...those beautiful days when we made paper boat ..mom shouting..beemar padd jaoge.....playing in muddy water....drenched in rain and still laughing and smiling....remember after getting fully drenched in rain..went to see a waterfall in pachmarhi...then jumped from top in that waterfall pond with my friend Suresh....wow..a magnificient feelings .......rains always brings smile..happiness and nostalic feelings of childhood.....too good article once again.......thanks Ma'am

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anju
25/2/2012 08:52:21 pm

Beautifully written ..guess the lil' girl is you ,down memory lane !!

Well the article brings back memories of famed rains of Mumbai....one particular incident wish to write ..me not very adventurous kinds ...that day it was raining torrentially and half way through my way to office i decided to turn back ..when my companion of bus / train cajoled n coxed me ...are u crazy ..u'll go back home and she caught my hand and pulled me in knee deep waters , soaking in the muddy waters and wading my way thru pots and holes till i finally reached the clinic :)

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Ros
26/2/2012 08:28:10 am

I love the idea of imprinting fern patterns on your skin. Here, the happiest memories of rain are when you are safely tucked inside listening to it hammering down outside! You rescue childhood memories so well.

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RITEN
26/2/2012 01:07:09 pm

The parallel universe is a wonderful title for a poetic outburst going down memorylane.We have all got bogged down with the Expanding Universe.Parallel lines never meet but they stay equidistant and carry on. A wonderful narrative indeed//in every human, deep inside there are these lovely moments which carry us through treacherous times.ery well written.

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noopur
26/2/2012 11:20:24 pm

hey we all did the fern pattern :) rains do bring back so many memories .....beautifully written Bisht !

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Anisha
28/2/2012 01:54:36 am

Beautifully written Rachna. Seemed like a piece of art.. slightly different from your usual style but nice..Details made the pictures in my mind alive..
I have to try making the fern pattern! Guess I didn't have many where I grew up ;-)

Reply
Pushpa Bhandari Bisht
15/3/2012 07:10:02 pm

Your beautiful piece left wet footprints in my heart. I too made fern patterns once, went for walks in the rain. We would collect tadpoles in a jar, prise the snails off the leaves and jump over an overflowing stream ambitiously only to get dunked in it!
Today, once again I walked the uneven terrain with the little girl. Sitting in front of my PC, I once again tilted my face to the sky and felt the drench of raindrops. They slid down my face and collected in a pool of emotions. Yes Rachna, it was a different opera back then. The music was different and your writing brought it all back. What can I say? Heart-achingly beautiful !

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    Rachna Bisht Rawat is a full time mom and part time writer. She is married to an Army officer whose work takes the family to some of the most interesting corners of India.

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