Rain, Rain Come Again !

Oh rain, how I love thee! Not that I don’t appreciate the sunny-ness of the warm summer days but rains have always been my favorite. I feel everybody has some or the other emotions attached to it. To some it brings nostalgia, while for some it is a reflection of what they are feeling deep inside but cannot show. The lil' old fashioned L-OW-VE-ER-SSS give it a romantic notion while the new gen ones associate it to their steamy/hot idea of love or something to that effect.

To me rains bring a feeling of freedom, independence and free spiritedness. It’s a childhood thing I guess. My mum tells me that when I was a little kid, I never gave up on catching the little droplets from our washroom tap. Not too fancy an idea I know, but I guess my persistence didn’t fail me even when I am all grown up.

It’s one of my secret wishes to stand in the middle of the rain and lift my head high up while extending my arms wide open (while not doing the tipsy turn) so that I don’t miss the feel of any, each and every drop of rain. The idea of doing so makes me feel like a bird going to take its first flight and gives me the adrenaline rush of a free fall. To some it might be immature-ish , childish behavior. But to me that’s the very essence of my existence- Freedom.

So this time when it started raining in my not-so-huge college campus, I decided to walk it slow to my hostel room. I noticed that everybody around me was running either for a shed or to their respective hostels. I was sure it were the rains that triggered such a reaction but I never understood why. Is it that people simply don’t enjoy rain? Now that, to me, is sad. Or is it because they are all grown up and regard getting deliberately drenched as an immature behavior? That is sadder because here they are also stereotyping the behavioral tendencies of grown ups.

So what is it about getting drenched that makes it so immature-ish? The sole fact that a person does what he feels like at the exact moment when he feels like doing it without caring about the people around him, I guess. That is how a child behaves and people actually find it cute then. As a child grows up, he learns to differentiate good from bad, dreams from reality through experiences and practicality. As he grows further he learns to follow a set of certain societal norms that dictate to him social etiquettes, which is all justified but this is definitely not one of those situations.

There is never a need for “bringing out the child” in oneself as long as you retain his innocence, individuality and maverick- ness. Maybe not all the time but sometimes is good enough. Learn to lose your inhibitions because there is never a need for self containment if free spirit is your virtue and innocence is your vice.

So get out jumping in the rain, kick your muddy shoes up high and have an awesome day ahead!