Monsoon Connection

by Niharika Prabhakar

The wind was beginning to howl, and the faintest little drops of rain could be heard on the veranda roof. Myna smelled the air with relish and ran inside. Dadi was not only fond of monsoons, but ecstatically in love with them.

If anything would make Myna feel better today, it was going to be Dadi sitting cross legged on her simple cot, facing the window, buoyed by the charming weather.

Myna skipped into the room, a movement that belied the petulant, childlike pout on her face.

“What news do you bring from the outside world today, Myna?” Dadi asked as Myna settled herself on a cushion near her feet.

“A sad day,” Myna announced. “Very, very sad.”

“What?” Dadi boomed, “it’s never a sad or bad day when it is raining, my child.”

“It is when your boyfriend leaves you for questionable women.”

“So Rajat proved to be what I warned you he was all along?”

Myna scoffed. “You don’t like any of my boyfriends.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have great taste, Sona,” Dadi said using her nickname, and fondly ruffling her hair.

Myna laughed along for a second, until the dam broke and the tears began falling unabated.

“I really thought he was different,” Myna blubbered.

Dadi put down her knitting, surprised at the uncharacteristic outburst. Men did not usually make a deep impact on her precious Myna.

“Why, Myna, you are worth ten of him!”

“He was so handsome!” Myna exclaimed.

“Nowhere as close as you are beautiful!”

“And intelligent, he had three companies fighting over him!”

“You’ve helped more people just being you than he ever will chasing money!”

“He had such a charming circle of friends, all influential people.”

“You, my dear, have me!” Dadi declared loudly, jumping out of her cot and comically flexing her arms.

Myna laughed out loud. She wondered at how she was able to unload so much on her grandmother, when she felt embarrassed to bring up the topic of her relationships with her own mother, who would “tch, tch” disapprovingly whenever Myna mentioned a date.

“I do have you, Dadi, I do!” Myna yelped, encircling her grandmother in a tight hug.

They both sat on the floor, watching the rain through the open window. Rain connected them like nothing else.

It was a feeling that they shared, a mutual appreciation and devotion to the season, which no one else could understand. It lifted them up, and transformed the mundane into the extraordinary. It was just rain, but it was so much more to them.

Myna sat there for a long while, giggling with Dadi as they remembered some of her older romantic partners.

After an hour or so, when the rain had tapered into an innocent drizzle, Myna’s mother opened the door and peeped inside.

“Myna?” She said gently.

“Oh, hi, Mom,” Myna replied.

“I heard voices, who were you talking to, beta?”

Myna squeezed the small frame with the photo of her and Dadi. “I was speaking to Dadi,” Myna said sadly. “The rain…”

Myna’s mother nodded. “It reminds me of her, too.”

Myna put the frame back on the table and looked out of the window one last time.

The monsoon still connected them. Even now, a year after she had passed. Myna’s heart glowed warmly. She would always have the rains.

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