Rain

I love it when it rains. And no, it's not just the smell of the wet earth, because I live in a concrete jungle. Like most recent things, it is aesthetic in nature. And not just any damn drizzle, but I am talking about mother pouring rains like the kind Maharashtrian farmers pray for. The roads are wet, throwing back at us our very own luminance - the red, amber, green of the traffic signals, mixed on this black shiny canvas, with the different neon signs of the curbside shops.

It's better late at night when you don't have to share the canvas with the other voyeurs, creeping on the veins of the highway to death with their little signals of red paint, to stop and stare. You creep on, like a newly transmitted virus into the veins of a busy lawyer's body, taking in more and infecting more with your illuminating gaze. The wipers disturb you with their loud whirring with the sustained punctuality of a Chinese factory worker.

But if you happen to step out earlier, as the pink and transparent umbrellas vie for the uniform grayness of the rainy sky, you catch that smile that escapes the creased zipper of a pair of tight thin painted lips, as her beau steps into a puddle and gets his boring white socks wet, while she shows off her new furry boots to him. But he ignores her fur and only curses at his wetness, knowing little that he would revisit this scene later all by himself and wonder why he hadn't clung to her instead of his shoes.

Then there is the whole menagerie of shiny colors composed with the pink and the transparent through your windshield, through the whirring Chinese wipers. And when you turn the wipers off and let the cascade of the pureness of the rainwater wash your vessel down, your pupils open up welcomingly at the brilliant fluidity of the oil painting that looks like it's still in progress and is the product of the creativity of some artist's under-worked hand using some musty water colors.