Rain on me …a monsoon tale in three acts. (Act 1)

It was close to five in the evening, and the skies were overcast. The air was so heavy and thick – you could almost slice it with a knife. Savita made her way wearily past the hawkers, as she felt the humidity seep through her, dragging her down slowly. She heard a wave of voices wash over her. “Tomatoes, just six for a kilo, just six for a kilo”. “Mangoes, Dasari mangoes.” “Memsahib, come here, what do you need. I’ll give you a good deal?”

She went through the motions of haggling with the vegetable hawkers, scrutinizing the potatoes and brinjals to make sure that they weren’t spoilt. It was like an elaborate play that unfurled every evening. Hawkers with vegetables and fruits and utensils gathered near the street opposite her colony, and husbands who were returning from their offices, and wives who were stepping out of their homes milled around. There were all familiar faces, and there were all familiar conversations. “Mrs. Sharma, I haven’t seen you in such a long time. I heard that you weren’t feeling well, hope everything is OK?” asked Mrs Parekh though they lived in the same building just two floors apart. Mrs Dwivedi invariably told all who were willing to listen about her son who lived in America, and Mr Rastogi constantly complained about how expensive everything was these days.

Savita sweated profusely as she climbed the stairs with her load of groceries. They lived on the fourth floor of the building which was the top most floor, and buildings with less than five floors were not allowed to have lifts – a law that was a source of much consternation for her. She stopped at the landings, and waited to catch her breath and wiped her lips with corner of her sari pallu which was already limp and soggy, though it had been freshly starched when she had taken it out earlier in the afternoon.

When she finally reached her flat, she switched on the fan and plunked herself on the sofa before she started putting away the groceries in the refrigerator. She made some tea for herself and her husband, and went into the bedroom to wake up her husband Rakesh. She saw him lying there with his eyes closed and his mouth wide open. Savita watched him closely – his skin was coarse and leathery, and though he was just a little over forty, lines crisscrossed his face. He didn’t look old but he didn’t look young either. In fact, Rakesh’s face rarely ever revealed anything – and after fourteen years of marriage, she still wasn’t sure what she thought of him or how she felt about him.

“Tea is ready,” she said in a voice that sounded like she was afraid to wake him up. When he didn’t answer, she just left the cup of tea on the bedside table and left the room.”

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People spoke in hushed voices around her, and she felt as if she were swathed in a sea of white. In the distance, she heard people moaning and crying. So, this is what death is like, she thought. She almost felt like she was watching a movie - afloat and removed - it was also eerily tranquil, like the lull before the storm.

“Savita, are you sure you don’t want to eat anything?” her sister asked. Suddenly, she was woken out of her reverie. “No, I don’t think so,” she replied. Savita scanned the room, and heard people whispering to each other about the death of her husband, Rakesh.
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“Poor thing, she must be in shock. She can’t even seem to cry.”

“Mr Sehgal was such a nice man, I don’t know how this could have happened – it was so sudden. I heard that Savita returned from the market, and tried to wake him up for tea, when she saw that he was dead.”

“Didn’t he have a heart attack two years as well. It just goes to show, that life is so unpredictable. “

“Oh yes, life is uncertain. And I really should not eat those oily samosas anymore. I think I should start keeping a tab on this cholesterol velesterol thing.”

“I feel so bad for Savita – she doesn’t even have any children – I don’t know what she’ll do.”

“Well, from what I have heard, at least she won’t have to worry about money – she now owns this house, and Rakesh invested quite wisely.”

“Look at how well he has done for himself – when they came here, he had nothing. He was just a clerk at the Bank; ten years later he had bought this house, a Maruti car. It’s really quite remarkable.”

“Mrs Bhatia was telling me that he took a lot of bribes though. I mean see his house, I don’t know how a man who earns a mediocre salary could buy these big fancy brass lamps and marble statues?”

In the center of the room, was a large photograph of Rakesh and his younger brother, two sisters and Rakesh’s mother were sitting next to it. Rakesh’s mother was wailing audibly and swaying back and forth saying, "Hai, Bhagvan”


It had been three days since Rakesh’s death. This was the fourth day, when family and friend gathered to pay their last respects. In the opposite end of the room, sat an elderly man, who was reciting verses from the Gita. These verses were meant to comfort the mourners as they reaffirmed the immortality of the soul. Every few minutes, the man would pause to explain the meaning of the verses. “As Arjuna confronts his fears about death on the battlefield, Lord Krishna, his charioteer and mentor, says, ‘Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor all these kings; nor in the future shall anyone of us cease to be’,” he intoned.