#4 When it rains ...

I've committed to writing regularly. This one is about my experience of rain in the different places I've called Home.

It’s early morning. On most days, I am woken up by the sounds of birds chirping and cows mooing. Not today - today it’s the deafening roar of the South Westerly monsoon. Loud enough to startle me awake.

Rains in this part of the world are different from anything I’ve ever experienced before. In eastern India where I grew up, early monsoons felt like they were on military schedule - arriving at 4, departing at 6. As the weeks wore on, these timings would change, but they would rarely last more than a couple of hours at a time. And they were nothing that a strong umbrella or good quality duckback raincoat couldn’t save you from. At least that’s how I remember them.

Delhi monsoons were hot and sticky. Bangalore rains were sweet and muted - the tree canopies tempered most of the deluge from above. At least at the campus where I was studying. I don’t remember it raining very much in Texas. But when it did, Houston was reliably flooded.

Parisian rains, on the other hand, were very polite. Pitter-patter. Often we could just walk through them without getting seriously wet. It rains a lot in northern France, almost all year. The sky is grey and the roads are murky and in the winter months it gets depressing. Sometimes rain changes into snow and in the summer months the rains all but disappear, singing sweet relief when they do show up occasionally. Almost always Parisian rains are light - each individual drop tiny and insubstantial.

The drops here, on the other hand, are fat, heavy and downright rude. They arrive unannounced and impatient. A swollen ocean in the sky that’s decided at the spur of a moment - it must pour down - all of it and all at once. Sudden and torrential. Roaring. Deafening. Birds, caught unawares shoot off to the nearest trees for cover. Our poor cats, so used to seeing light rains from their window sill in Paris are simply terrified of the sudden onslaught here - they scurry inside and hide under our beds, afraid the clouds might find their way inside the house somehow.

Momo shielding himself inside our Parisian apartment

I’ve been told that it can and will rain non-stop for weeks on end and we will likely be a little sad and will crave for the sun to come out. I nod and mentally compute that it sounds like Paris in January. I know this feeling and also I don’t. Something old that I carry on my skin and something new my heart wants to feel open to.