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Ramblings
Rainy Days and Mom Days
by Monisha Sen
 I
watch my kids stick their tongues out to taste the rain, giggling and
shrieking as wind and rain whip around them. I don’t have the heart to
call them into the shelter of my umbrella, and I hear an echo in my
heart. A distant echo, when my brother and I ran out of the house one
enforced rain holiday from school. My babies are just beginning to
experience the monsoons, and I thought I could share my favorite season
with them. What a difference being a parent makes.
It is their turn to learn the joys of standing in the showers, whether
it is while going to school or in the playground. While wool gathering
in the balcony, or rushing to stand by an open window before mom bangs
it shuts. My role has been relegated to obsessing about every puddle
they let into the house. Of correlating the number of changes of clothes
with the number of showers in a day. Of stringing lines and drying
clothes in every room, and putting up with the damp wet-clothes smells
all day.
We bought them the bright umbrellas making splashes of color wherever
you look these days. And raincoats. My daughter protested on having to
carry and wear them. She says the drizzle still gets into collars, into
her hair, so why bother. My son manages to get completely wet navigating
every puddle he sees despite all the gear he has put on. I guess it’s
their turn to get wet on every occasion, mine to pointlessly nag about
carrying extra clothes and socks to school.
They are learning to enjoy the gloom, the cold and the damp. And I again
get this feeling of déjà vu every morning as I try to wake the warm,
cuddly bundles in time for school. I get this feeling my mother used the
same lines that I hear myself holler.
They are getting used to not seeing the sun for days. Which means the
playground is too damp to meet little buddies. I have learnt to stock up
for my turn to hold impromptu tea parties, when the neighborhood kids
splash in on “rain holidays”.
Learning the delight of hopping into every puddle in sight. Of making
mud-pies. Of walking on slushy grass. Of dangling an earthworm at the
end of a stick. Of hot roasted “bhuttas”. I have resigned myself
to spending my evenings taking off the mud caked in shoes, pant cuffs,
cycle tyres… ready for the next days’ mauling.
It is their turn to play “who can jump highest in the slush”. And my
turn to worry (and nag) about conjunctivitis, jaundice, coughs and
colds.
I watch my kids taste the rain. I think we’ll bunk school tomorrow and
go home, to my mum’s house. And sail paper boats in the storm drains
where my brother and I had played. Who knows, maybe grand mom will join
us, like she used to…
July 30
2006
Image under license with
Gettyimages.com
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Ramblings
The Week of July 30, 2006
Upto the President: Parties will closely watch his
next move by Rajinder Puri
Israel Strikes Back by Dr. Subhash Kapila
US Foreign Policy: Code Name "Operation Frankenstein"
by Gaurang Bhatt, MD
Nuclear "Hostage" Crisis by Col. Rahul K.
Bhonsle
Can International Friendship be Developed by
Friendship? by TA Ramesh
India: A Failed State? by V. Sundaram
Courting Injustice: The Terrible Truth about our
Courts by Rajesh Talwar
Islamic Indian Nationalism by V. Sundaram
Ideological Insurgency by Dr. Prasenjit
Maiti
Jobless Development by Nitin Jugran Bahuguna
On the Footsteps of Kautilya! by VK Joshi
Agriculture Policy for Energy Security by Dr.
Anil K. Rajvanshi
Biodiversity and the Tribal Lore by Kusum
Choppra
Who Needs All-woman Spaces? by Barbara Lewis
Kaazi Nazrul Islam: The National Poet of
Bangladesh compiled by Aparna Chatterjee
Increase your Computer's Heartbeat: Add RAM to it
by Ruchi Gupta
Bakery and Confectionery as a Career by
Pallavi Bhattacharya
The Journey: From Creation to Creator by Dr.
Vidur Jyoti
The Spinning of a Legend: Alexander the Great
... by Kamesh Aiyer
Self Realization: How do you Attain it? by
Pradeep Joshi
Rainy Days and Mom Days by Monisha Sen
Me, My Wife and Synthesizer by Prakash Pathre
Radio Active Palamau by Ajitha G S
Girls as Sacrificial Lambs by Zofeen T Ebrahim
The Witty Side by Melvin Durai
Keeping Kids in School by Gagandeep Kaur
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