Early at 3 o’clock in the morning,
broke out a torrent of rain,
Lashed through the windows,
and sprayed us in the bed,
Downing the room temperature
to a cooler sudden.
I rushed up,
unhooked the stops,
pulled and bolted the windows shut.
After some fifteen minutes,
rain steadied its angle from slant to straight
And I reopened the windows
to enjoy the natural freshness.
I switched off the fan,
shifted into the power-saving mode,
And I re-wrapped to resume
our brusquely halted dream.
At half past six when it subsided,
I ventured out
To fetch my daily dose of Jersey milk
from my regular grocer.
I looked up at the sky;
the ceiling was like an endless,
wave-less deluge.
Trees and bushes down under gaily bathed,
shedding tears of joy;
Blossoms everywhere
were gently swaying in their coy blushes;
While on the wet ground the blades of grass
glistened with their pearly surface
in the faint light of the unseen sun.
With not a canine creature in the ken
– feral or domestic -
The morning was still
with no yaps or yelps of the playful packs.
Not a bird was sighted,
all of them laid off.
Only satchel-saddled kids in their rain suits
Waited abuzz for their school buses or vans
Under the loving umbrella of their huddling parents.
As I was swimming through this real rainy reverie
Jolted was I with a splash of a paan spittle over my visage
From the monster of a bus barrelling past my right.
And hardly had I sensed it before a reckless auto to my left
Hurtled through a puddle to wash down the scarlet splash.
What a fall from a meridian aesthetic
To a galling mundane nadir so bathetic!
