Wisdom by Hindsight
I was woken up from my siesta by the sound of thunder, rain and heavenly petrichor.
As usual, and setting at rest doubts for this year, our monsoon has arrived on time. The image above is rain in our garden just five minutes ago. As I write this, there is thunder rolling over head and rain falling in torrents.
I shall now listen to some Malhar. My readers will remember my post last year on the same date my post on the subject.
The pluviophile in me is delighted.
As usual, I went to sleep for my daily siesta after lunch and woke up to find incessant rain and petrichor.
I remembered an article in our local newspaper about the winter rains and also how my son left his motorcycle in his friend’s place yesterday and took an autorickshaw back home as it was raining heavily.
I caught up with my email and blog comments and finally opened Facebook and came across this image posted by my sister there!
Anything unusual about the weather where you live?
After a dry spell of three days, the monsoon revived again this afternoon and I got up from my siesta to petrichor. Sitting in our verandah and watching the rain fall in our garden is one of my favourite pastimes and I indulged in it till the showers lasted.
Last year I was in better physical condition than I am now in and I was able to make short visits outside our home and I had gone to a reunion of ex colleagues at Lonavala during the rains. Till a few years earlier, every monsoon I used to go to Mahabaleshwar at least once during each monsoon but, all those are now distant memories.
I am at least mobile enough inside the home to be able to enjoy such a small pleasure that I am grateful enough to appreciate such small pleasures like petrichor and rain watching.
I am also very grateful that I am blessed with two young people in my life who pamper me. My pedicurist is closed due to the lockdown and since I cannot bend down to clip my own toe nails, my son Ranjan obliged. AND my daughter in love sneaked up from behind me and took this photograph to save the moment for posterity.
What a fantastic topic that Shackman has come up with for this week’s Friday 2 on 1 blog post where he and I write on the same topic. Please do go over to his blog to see his take on the subject.
Why sometimes? I wonder often about many things and right now at the beginning of our monsoon season, I wonder how something as rain drops falling on parched earth could release such a magnificent scent, yes, the petrichor never fails to release a sense of awe and wonder in me. I have searched high and low to get that in a perfume bottle or spray without any success. And sadly enough, it becomes just a memory till the monsoon is over and the earth dries up again and another unseasonal shower revives it.
I often wonder at how fortunate I have been in my life considering that as a teenager I was given up my extended family as being a nogoodnik with no prospects for the future. There were just two relatives, besides my mother who had faith that I will do well. It eventually turned out that I did well, very well indeed, much to the surprise of many and shock of some. The main reason that I am a total believer in the theory of karma.
Every time some one from my long forgotten past pops up to renew contact on facebook or WhatsApp or just telephones having got my telephone number from a mutual acquaintance, I wonder what makes for such affection that wants to renew contact. I also wonder when something triggers a memory and I try and locate someone from my past to renew the contact again.
Another wonder in my life just now is the latest addition to our family. Koko a blind dog who came into our home three weeks ago. It never fails to amaze me as to how she uses her other senses to get along and does not appear to miss being sans eyesight. She cheerfully bangs into furniture and people but has got her bearings inside the house to a tee and can navigate very well. Every time I see her playing around, I wonder at the karma that has made her blind but also brought her into our life. That in turn leads me to wonder about so many inexplicable situations that appear in my life for which, other than karma, I have no answers.
The biggest wonder of course in these attempts is that modern social media and the internet makes it possible to. Let me give you how I made two new friends by using exactly this modern wonder. Reading reviews of books led me to two such friends who were the reviewers. In one case, the email id was given at the end of the review and I simply had to send him a mail which led to exchanges of mails and telephone calls and today he is among my closest friends. In the other case, I had to search for his contact using the net and finally found it via Linkedin and though he has not quite become a close friend, he and I are in frequent touch on matters of mutual interest.
I often wonder how we lived without the internet in the good old days!
Earlier this week, I had gone on one of my rare outings to buy a chair for my bedroom. It was after a long time that I went to that particular part of the city and I wondered where such growth of the city will end in. The traffic was at least four times denser than what it was the last time that I had gone to that place. Our local Metro Railway is coming up in that area and once that comes, it may ease the congestion somewhat but, while the construction is going on, the road having become narrower causes for traffic jams. I wondered at the madness of modern urbanisation. I am sure that I will keep wondering about this phenomenon in the future also.
I can go on and on about the things that I wonder at or about and instead, shall end with this old favourite of mine which came to my mind immediately on getting the topic from Shackman. I hope that it will trigger as many memories for you as it did it for me listening to it after so many years.