I could have fallen on my knees and cried yesterday. In happiness, mind you. That I didn’t is only because then it would have necessitated someone else having to help me to my feet and I hobbling around the house for the next couple of days. And what’s more, if things did not get better at the end of those couple of days by merely wishing that it would, a visit to the orthopedist would have been on the cards. Imagine the orthopedist and me having this conversation.

O: How did it start?
S: I fell on my knees.
O: Oh. Did you trip and fall?
S: Umm …I mean, I fell on my knees
O: You mean like …on purpose?
S: Yeah.
O: (puzzled and curious) Why?
S: The sky looked so beautiful.
O: Hmmmm… Do you do this sort of thing fairly frequently?
S: No, no. It has been a long hot summer this year. Isn’t it?
O: (clearly unequal to the demands of the conversation) Summer…? What does summer have to do with…
S: (not listening)…and yesterday the sky looked so beautiful
O: …your fall?
S: …that I fell on my knees, and also cried.
O: Obviously. Your knee must have hurt terribly.
S: No, no. You don’t understand. It was because the sky was beautiful.
O: (Silently makes a note at the bottom of his note: Patient fixated with sky, needs counseling)

Anyways, it didn’t happen that way because having foreseen what would happen, I did not fall on my knees or cry. That’s why I began by saying, I could have… The sky was that beautiful.

Think of going through days and days of the bright sun relentlessly shining down on you, and you daily squinting at the sky with hope but finding nary a cloud in sight. Add to it a few more of days of clouds making an appearance, hanging around in the sky doing practically nothing, thereby increasing the stewing quotient of humans living down below. While all this was happening, many of us were losing weight without ever exercising, our fat melting away in perspiration. I am afraid I am not one of them.

Next came days of thunder rumbling far away, getting tantalizingly closer, and then passing us by. On some days five, six, or sometimes even ten or twenty rain drops were spared you while they hurried off on their way to more important meetings. The trees, they were sad; the plants were sadder and dying too, but not those living in a ‘protected’ environment in pots, glad to be watered daily by the L & M; the grass though had given up the struggle and gone underground to hibernate.

Yesterday I heard thunder rumble. Loud. Very loud that hope kindled. I looked out of the window and saw bright sunlight. Uh-ho. At games again, are we? Disgusted, I went back to folding clothes, giving it not the least attention. But within no time sunlight had vanished. The clouds it seemed meant business this time, had spread out and now hung low. So low that it looked as if  I could reach out and touch them from the roof of my house. The wind that blew brought a coolness we have not known since some time now. I could have fallen on my knees and cried, so beautiful was the sky.

But the question still remained. Would they or won’t they, the clouds, choose this area to be their place of action? As the big fat drops fell and the cool wind picked up, we knew for sure. We were the blessed ones of the day.

©Shail Mohan 2016