A Sunday Morning Rain

A Shikara in a lake in Kashmir.
Courtesy: BOMBMAN on Flickr | License: CC BY 2.0

He suddenly wakes up at 3:45 AM after a 'once in a while' timely sleep, following a dream sequence probably echoing some scene from the early mornings of hostel life. Soon he is enjoying a not much anticipated rainfall, while reading, browsing, munching; waiting for hands of clock to spread apart vertically.

At 6 he takes to the street to go for his morning walk. Sky is perfect azure, winds blow mild, figs cover the drenched asphalt, yellow and green alike. Sun efforts hard to break through the rebelling wet cotton puffs scattered through the sky. Pink-purple Bougainvilleas shudder to the breeze, while water drips down the asbestos roofs across the yellow walls of a secluded primary school and Moneyplant clings to the shoots of an overgrown shurb. A gunny bag flies down the 4th floor house. In the garden, green carpet entices the eyes as a young ladette wiggles hips; circling the track, pacing ahead of a large crowd of wailing elderlies and lame fat con mans carrying their own weights!

All the while he is eyeing beauties, trying their hands on steerings of some hatchbacks with a red-tape 'L' pasted across pretty sizeable portion of the windsheild, he is still not able to get off his mind some lines he came across in a Facebook note, about Kashmir encounters, earlier. Here goes a part of it -

"...Kids carry death in their school bags

Evening brings news, always

A white shroud, blood smeared

Like the blood of a slaughtered lamb

On the virgin snow

And a school bag

Inside, a report card

Teacher’s remarks:

This kid has a bright future

....

....

....

Kam gul-badan, metzchi andar ...

What tulips! One with earth, six feet under ...

Desolate mothers sipping heart attacks

In their pink tea

Fathers breathing cancer in their tobacco

Trying in vain

To accelerate the time..."

You may be able to access the complete text, by Mehran Qureshi, at the following link - Kashmir Is Taken!

Back home the guy tries to form an opinion and have an insight into things of higher order. What makes Maoists rise against the state? Why do people rebel at a G20 meet in Toronto? Why does China faces conflicts despite spectacular growth rates? What makes Thailand come to street?...

Anyways he is normal soon, digging Earth of a potted plant and asking it if it needs cold water, even after rain it is contnuing summer in New Delhi. Would a mud-pack heal its cuts or beautify it? Looking at Facebook responses, he is happy to have got 6 likes for his status and is looking for a mild afternoon nap post a Star Wars clip, since fantasy can be fascinating...

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