Rainy Mornings

My head is stuck under a rather hard pillow and the rest of my body is wrapped in a thick cotton sheet with red borders. I open my eyes and grimace because I know that it still isn’t time to get out of bed and so I am irritated with myself for ruining a perfectly good sleep. The ever present cell phone confirms my worst fears. There is barely an hour to go before I have to drag my sorry ass out of bed and start the day.

No, no. This is not how it was supposed to be. After ambling around Hyderabad’s horrible footpaths for more than an hour in my uncomfortable Woodland shoes last evening, I have a huge blister on my right foot. It gave me a good excuse to not go to the gym today. Last night I had gleefully planned to sleep till as late as I could. So getting up at 0630 was most certainly not on the agenda.

But now that I was awake I reason that I can either struggle to go back to sleep. And fail miserably at it and then have a grumpy day. Or I can make the most of the extra hour or so that I had. Surprisingly, I decided on the latter.

So I roll over, remove the useless pillow and look outside the window. Hmmm, that’s odd. It’s a little darker outside than it should be and the AC seems more effective in the room. Immediately I know what has happened. After years of living in Bombay, Goa and Lonavala I know how to recognize an early morning shower. My mood brightens, in stark contrast to the ambience outside. I open the windows, shut off the no longer needed AC and grin.

The skies are gray and overcast. Forbidding, stern and even angry. But the mango tree just outside my bedroom is alive and as happy as I am. It sways with the wind and its branches move in rhythm to a beat that only it seems to hear. I honestly think that it is welcoming the rains. The leaves rustle and there is the faint sound of tiny raindrops hitting them. No longer do they look dusty and stiff. Just like the rest of the tree, the leaves seem bursting with new energy. The older leaves appear darker while the new leaves, which are at the top of the branches, seem to be more vibrant. It is as if when the rain washed the man made dust off the mango tree, it also gave it a fresh lease of life.

While I make myself a cup of filter coffee I wonder what the monkeys think of the rains. I hope they don’t decide to use my balcony as a shelter. Monkeys can be very bad tenants. They never pay any rent, make a mess when they leave and sometimes attack their co-occupants. Plus, my landlord warned me not to sublet the apartment. Oh well, I guess the monkeys will fend for themselves.

The coffee tastes great. Maybe it is because I love sitting in a cane chair, with my feet on the ledge of the balcony and listening to the sounds of the rain. Everything seems so energized and young. The newspaper and the rest of the world can wait. Ah, for mornings, and weather, like this throughout the year.....