A rainy day in the village

 

A rain-soaked night in July. The rainy month weeps through clouds. Continuous drizzle in the dark. The night brooding, muddy, hushed and pensive.

The next day gloomy. Sodden. Greywashed. Rainy. A mournful sight like a stillborn child. All wet. But still earth-scented. And that’s the saving grace, if there is any.

Electricity is costlier now in the village thanks to the increased rates and strange new electricity meters, which run at high speed even with just bulbs on. That unsettles the fragile nerves in the village society. As people seek ways to steal power, there are many who play straight through renewable energy.

Lots of houses have installed rooftop solar systems. The rooftop solar panels are nice slanting sliders for the monkeys during fine weather. They hide under them to escape heat, rain and cold.

On this drizzle-soaked day, the trees dripping with water, the monkeys bear a somber expression, a wistful look in their restless eyes, their sense of mischief bruised and held in extraordinary quietude.

When the monkeys are at play on a fine day, the solar panels serve as nice sliders for simian antics. Furthermore, the top-ends are great perch points to put their red bums on and covetously eye some monkey boy or girl. Now, in the drizzle-soaked silence, they seem to be looking forward to typical after-rain simian hustle bustle.

The solar systems’ wiring offers nice biting practice to sharpen their fangs to flaunt them with more sadistic glint during feigned attacks on humans.

On this rainy day, some of them are sitting well behaved under the solar panels. Waiting for the rain to stop and then come out and wreak havoc in the garden below—eating a few guavas and breaking dozens of branches and boughs just for the sheer fun of it.

And a sad sight. A big black butterfly with red spots has fallen on the ground. Upturned. Wings stuck to the wet ground. I think it’s dead but it flutters in protest as I try to pick it up. I hold it softly on a yellow guava leaf and leave it on a rose. It clings sideways, not able to maintain balance. A dying butterfly most probably.

The rain continues to fall and so does the butterfly. A very sad sight: a butterfly stilled. Dead. A young monkey defies the rough weather and jumps onto the electricity cables and walks like an acrobat. Mischief hanging above; sorrow settling below. The time fractured by monkeyish mischief and loss of a butterfly. A boy laughs looking at the monkey. The rain blurring laughter and sorrow.

A little story the rain writes on mud. My little nephew looks at the dead butterfly—silence learnt innocently; a child learning grief while looking at fallen wings. The boy maybe thinks that possibly the butterfly forgot to fly. The rain doesn’t know it’s a sad day in a little corner in the small garden of a village poet.

A feral cat gets bored with its hiding in a barn and runs out to get into some action. The play proceeds; the once winged life gone. The little boy tenderly lifts the winged corpse on a leaf. Learning love, care and empathy.