"You have an umbrella?"

This is probably a wrong frame of mind to start writing in. But somehow, the "right" of doing things will never walk to me and present itself in this lifetime. Even if it does, I'd probably not be able to recognize it. Anyway, screw the right ways. Let's look leftward for a change. How pathetic, that last line!

It's raining outside. I look outside, and it looks exactly like the first day I entered my college. Pouring like crazy. That was four years ago. They passed away like wind. Just like the cool breeze that greets the my upper back. My ideas of what I would be doing in this first heavy shower  of this year have been washed away by the torrent on the other side of the window.

I'd asked someone some time ago, on another rainy day long past, "You have an umbrella?"

I never knew that one question could topple an entire world. See? Give a person "blues" inducing weather, a very inappropriate song to listen to, the ability to read and write, ability to write, more importantly. Congratulations! You have all the machinery required to create ludicrous statements. 

A friend of mine said something very profound. Actually, he asked something very profound...

What comes first? The music, or the misery?

Although I'm not sure if I'll be successful at conveying the meaning of what my friend said. But really. Look at a big chunk of art. It stems from some source of pain, longing, sorrow, beauty, something ethereal, beyond the grasps of tangibility. Every artist has his/her own muse. You know the sight that greets your eyes., but yet, have no way of describing it.

Look at language. Each word has a meaning. So we make best use of words to convey what we have in mind. Yet, there are things that stay at the tip of the tongue, which, we delude ourselves into thinking that, they would be easy to put into words and blurt out. But when it comes to saying what it was that we felt, words don't come to mind. Linguistically challenged, just at the wrong time. Alas. We might as well be mute. 

As for my friend's question, misery comes in the form of music. As the saying goes, misery loves company. And what better if the company is entertaining?

The grunt in the voice of the singer, whose song I'm hearing while I write all of this, leaves my hair standing. The strong guttural notes lend a force to the song that complements the incessant pitter-patter of the rain on the window pane.

It's constant. The rain. Each drop like an acupuncture needle. But somehow soothing after it crashes against your skin, when it disintegrates into smaller drops that bounce off you. 

A while ago, I was loitering outside It hadn't started raining yet. I like looking at trees when I walk. Specially when I'm surrounded by coconut trees, which, under no prior notice, have this ugly habit of dropping coconuts on heads of unsuspecting passers by. Mango trees have started producing small, tender green buds. Raw, young, innocent, brazenly sour precursors to what will eventually turn into hues of yellow, orange and red, sweet, pleasing to taste, wrinkled, and fall off at the end of summer if not plucked. Another 3-4 months.

More than the time that remains of the 4 years that I, and many around me, had signed up to spend here on that rainy day, four years ago. 

The only thing I wonder is whether I'd have written all of this if I hadn't asked that one ruddy question that day...."You have an umbrella?".

Maybe it doesn't matter if I had. For all I know, there might be a storm coming.