rain is pretty.

its awesome. time seems to stand still while watching the rains. it washes the dust and makes everything feel new, leaves, grass, flowers. i hate getting wet, though, i can bear to look at the rains for hours. a thing of beauty is a joy forever. but...

at 33, dad decided to return to his hometown. at 13, i was put in a school a few hours away, the best. i had to stay in the upper floor of a tiny convent with dingy toilets, dark bathrooms and bunks too close for comfort.

the academic session starts in June, when the monsoons start. i could take the teasing of my accent, my clothes, my point of view that was different on everything, but i was finding it hard to stomach the food with coconut and coconut oil. add to that, the rains that never stopped.

i was craving rajma and pakodas and mom's cooking that was a lovely blend of all the places dad had been posted to. once in high school here, the girls stopped playing and talking. all they did was mug and study. marks mattered way too much. tenth standard boards were epic.

the rains continued. we washed our own clothes here. i had no idea of how to get them dried. i wasn't smart enough to figure things out from what and how others were doing. i was losing weight, missing periods and crying too much.

by the time the monsoons ended, i was living with my grandparents and went to a new school, an average, not very good one. the uniform had changed. the girls and i did not get along. but, i did not have to spend every hour with them. so...

it took me more than ten years to understand why i don't romanticise the rain, why i always look for, carry or find my own sunshine... and, another five or six years to fall in love with the burst of flavour that coconut oil is.

PS

i jumped from one blog to the other till i found a post on another blogger's death. and, from the pictures there, i found, she loved flowers, windows, the full moon... and, her life.