Today morning I was out walking in the rain. When I say rain, it actually was a pause where the rain appeared lost in thought and was doing a halfhearted job of it.

I not only love rain (WHO doesn’t know that??!!), but I also love walking in the rain. There is no way a drizzle is going to stop me from my morning walk. So there I was walking in the soft rain, invigorated by the wet cool morning air when I heard someone ask,

“The rain is no problem for you?”

I looked up to see a familiar face. The man’s hand was making a circle over his head to imply my head was getting wet.

By the way, everyone and their grand uncle, and grand aunt too for that matter, associate rain with falling sick. I don’t. I thrive in the rain.

I have lost count of the number of times people have cautioned me against rain. Take an umbrella, they urge me. What are you doing in the rain, they ask me horrified. Do you want to catch a cold, they admonish. You’ll get pneumonia, they state with insufferable self-assurance.
In short, they impose on me in the name of that all important excuse called, concern.

You see, and whether you do or not, ‘concern’ is an umbrella —not the kind you use in the rain, obviously—under which your family, friends, well-wishers, acquaintances, and also absolute strangers, knowingly or unknowingly conceal their need to control the world around them.

If you have awareness, you’ll come across it in every nook and cranny of your life. Some revel in it, others give up and become a part of it to keep up with the Concern Joneses, and still others fight it tooth and nail. No prizes for guessing where I belong.

Right about now, you may well be thinking I am going overboard with this. But give it a moment to sink in and you may—I am not saying you will, only that you MAY—get it. Unnecessary concern equals control.
Why else would someone want to make obvious and totally redundant remarks to fully grown and quite-in-their-senses adults, who obviously can—or more importantly, SHOULD know to— think for themselves? Why would anyone want to infantalize another if not for the sense of power (of the do-gooder) it gives them?

People —most of them anyway—cherish control. That’s the truth and nothing but the truth. In their mind it gives them the relevance that they unconsciously (I am being charitable here) crave. You may dress it up any which way you like. That it doesn’t really matter. It is after all an innocent query. It is love of a form speaking. If I don’t then who will? Don’t be deceived. What it boils down to is nothing but a simple fight to stay relevant.

To me, it all feels really sad, both the need to stay relevant and the means chosen, that extra—and totally unnecessary—solicitousness shown to those around, loved and unloved, thereby infantilising them. How about having confidence in others to do the right thing without prompts from you? How about reminding yourself that you may drop dead today, but the world will still go on, as it very well should, without you?

In my own home, the husband and the two now grown up children are treated as the adults they deserve to be. My success or relevance as a wife/parent is not tied to showing concern—plain fuss, if you ask me—and controlling even minor actions of theirs.

But I have, infamously and predictably, digressed from the morning walk in the rain and the man I met on my morning walk.
He, I felt, was a refreshing change from the relevance seekers. He did not question my decision. He did not imply through his words that my action was irresponsible and foolish. He did not force his advice on me. He did not predict doom as the outcome.

He simply asked me if I was okay with the rain.
I said I was, and he smiled and carried on. He treated me like the adult I am—and deserve to be—with respect, not as some ignoramus who is seeing rain for the first time in her life. Here’s to him. May his tribe increase.

Note: Those of you who love to be fussed over, don’t come with hatchets for me for writing this. Good luck with the fussing and being fussed over, I say. Lekin, mujhse duur raho please. 🙏🏻

©️ Shail Mohan 2026

[With this post, hopefully, the Phoenix has risen from the ashes to be able to post moore frequently here. Keeping my fingers crossed.]