Rain and Earthworms

It's the beginning of the monsoons and I am looking outside my window. The drizzle seems to resemble the gentle sprinkling of caster sugar. The road wears a pale, melancholic look which is occasionally dotted by a few umbrellas scurrying about in anonymity. A motorbike skids by, making an annoying spattering sound. Suddenly the sky, as though it has slipped on a cape, seems dangerous and menacingly dark. Trees sway indecisively like a pendulum; the wind hisses through the leaves, swooping down and spiralling into a crazed dervish swirl, enveloping granules of dust and abandoned plastic bags.  

During the monsoons, my world shrinks, more or less, to the size of my apartment. It's a self-imposed exile that is characteristic of an adult life. Children behave in a manner contrary to that—they lack the peculiar self-consciousness of playing in the rain that one learns as one ages. When I was a kid, I would head out the moment I heard a thunderous announcement. I would swoop down the dingy L-shaped staircase of my apartment building, sliding my palm across the dusty railing, shouting names of friends at each floor in the hope of an immediate congregation. The moment I'd reach the ground, I'd rush towards the open courtyard with my arms stretched out, my chin tipping upwards, my mouth open and my eyes shut.

I would squat near puddles and peer wide-eyed into the shallow pool to find an earthworm, or two, floating languidly. Imagination is a peculiar gift. In your head, its landscape is gigantic, fertile, sprawling. It's where mythical creatures and the fantastical reside. My friend had once whispered into my ear that earthworms were in fact, siblings of a great serpent, and if I ever harvested one from a muddy puddle and took it under my care, it would eventually grow into a huge serpent and would have magical powers. That I could travel to school riding a gigantic serpent was in itself quite a kick. Just the mere imagery of that would trigger off other certain fictions in my head, where I would end up imagining what it would be like ruling an empire of earthworms. It's a disgusting and rather stomach-churning thought, I know, but at the age of five, becoming the sovereign of a land, no matter how slithery or slimy your subjects are, is nothing short of an achievement.

So while other girls my age would burst into cacophonous shrieks, I remember dipping my fingers into the puddle to pick out a rotund earthworm that wriggled and wrestled to loosen my grip. It eventually succeeded and fell tepidly on the ground. A sense of pity [and defeat] washed over me and I let the poor chap crawl away. 

That was the time I conceded that ruling over a legion of crawlies was perhaps not the best idea.   

{monsoons, notes from childhood, memory}