Fiction: Rain

Pranab Ghosh

-Pranab Ghosh

I.

Sound of rain, as if from a distant land, from another day of half-forgotten past, lashes the window pane. It has a sweet resonance. A cadence. Rising and falling. Rising and falling. Sound of wind... of rain...of rain and wind! Rosita's face contorts. ...Sound of wind hissing...rain beating against the glass window...a thunderbolt... rain, wind, thunder...sound of rain...wind...thunder...of gurgling cloud pervades Rosita! 

She twists and turns...

“Who is he? Or She? Or...?”, Rosita turns!

A figure, so crooked yet so bright! He is taller than the trees! He is on a horse.

“A figure so twisted? Riding a horse...”. Rosita raises her hand to cover her eyes!

She cannot stand the twisted man, drenched in rain.

A lightning... a pair of burning eyes. A pair of eyes on a horseback... a black horse...! A pair of red, swirling eyes pierces Rosita, who shrieks and rolls over.

A pair of glaring eyes... faint sound of rain beating the window pane... wind hissing!

Rosita wakes up. Her mouth is dry and bitter. She looks for the water jug.

It’s 4.30 am. It’s pitch dark outside. The sound of rain and wind, of gurgling cloud is so pervading! “Where is the jug?”. Rosita looks for her mother!

She has had dengue. She had fever a few days ago. Her temperature was normal yesterday. She was however, confined to her room. She had been there for the last six days. 

It’s mid-September and it’s still raining in Delhi. The monsoon refuses to leave. There isn’t so much rain every year. There wasn’t so much rain even last year or the year before. In fact, there wasn’t so much rain in the last 25 years! The news channels said so. 

Rosita has not gone to school for the last six days. The bitter taste in her mouth, effect of antibiotics, makes her bitter. She wants to yell at her mother.

“Where’s the jug of water?”

Rosita remembers the pair of burning red eyes. She looks out of the window. She sees streaks of light. It’s 5 am. She has been sitting on the bed for half-an-hour now! 

A black horse? A twisted man. Rosita is recovering. She can go to school in a day or two. 

“Who is the twisted, mounted man?”

Rosita calls out, “Ma...Ma...”!

...................

II.

A shepherd boy. He is sitting under a tree in a forgotten valley. Is he humming a tune? Where is his herd of cattle? Why will he be a shepherd boy? So thought Nilanjana!

He has big dreamy eyes... locks of hair kiss his shoulder. Unmindful of the admiring eyes of Nilanjana he is humming a tune in the forgotten valley.

Nilanjana no longer remembered the name of the valley that she visited with her parents years ago. She only remembered the big dreamy eyes, the unknown tree under which he sat and the rolling greenery that met the horizon in an unknown place. Where would that place be? Had the shepherd boy ever been to that place?

It’s mid September. Nilanjana is standing alone in the verandah overlooking the Calcutta Medical College. The street below is busy. It’s not so wide. It connects College Street with CR Avenue. 

Nilanjana had walked down the street, how many times, she had forgotten. She knew every building on the street... the booksellers on the pavement, the person selling sugarcane juice, the bookstall specializing in second-hand medical books... she knew them all!

She looks down at the street. She sees a cart puller... a taxi...she hears the honk of the yellow taxi. She recognizes nothing! Everything, from the cart puller to the red brick wall of the Medical College, fades away, dissolves into nothingness!

Her hands are on the rail of the verandah. Her grip on the iron fastens. She likes the touch of the cold lifeless metal. A drop falls on her left hand. A raindrop. She looks up. 

The sky is overcast now. Where did all the clouds come from? When did they gather? 

It was sunny when she had come to the south-facing verandah of her university. The classes had been called off that day and everybody had left! Nilanjana stayed back. Who was she waiting for?

‘What time is it?’ Nilanjana thought. She had forgotten to put on her watch that day, and she did not carry a mobile phone! It looked like 6 o’clock in the evening. 

The valley comes back with its trees and lush green fields... the horizon... the shepherd boy!

Rain began to fall. First in a trickle, then gained momentum. Nilanjana was hit by the incessant drops – big ones. She did not move an inch! Why was she standing there? She had forgotten.

The valley is all over the place! 

Nilanjana’s eyes moistened.

Someone touched her shoulder. The shepherd boy? She looked back. “Oh! It’s you, Rohit? It’s been hours now that I have been standing here!” Nilanjana’s voice trembled.

Rain drenched Nilanjana touched Rohit’s forearm.

Is he the shepherd boy?

...........................

III.

“Do you remember Sayan?”

“Ah! Who can forget him Mridul? Mridul, you and Sayan were inseparable! Weren’t you”

“Where have you been all these days, Mridul? Mridul, do you still remember September 15, 1975? It had rained all day... . The roads in our village had become muddy. You could barely walk on those. My father had come to know about our relationship! He was keeping an eye on me.

“He was an orthodox Brahmin. He could not stand the thought of her only daughter getting married to a Kayet*- that too unemployed! You were 21 then. 21. You had dream in your eyes. Dream. You wanted me to dream too. I used to get scared. You spoke about a new ‘morrow’, which would belong to us, our children!

“It was almost seven in the evening. I managed to sneak out. You were waiting near the Shiv mandir* where Ichhamati* turned left. ...

“Do you remember Ichhamati, Mridula? The fishermen in their boats? The bhatiali* they sang in the evening? How we sat in trance listening to the sad melody, which the breeze brought to us. The song, sometimes so close to you that you could, as if, touch the fishermen singing it; sometimes coming from a distant land, far far away from you. Mridul, you held my hand that evening and vowed by the fishermen’s song to stay together till death.

“That was the last I saw of you!”

It’s mid-September. Urvashi is walking down the Orchard Road, a high street in Singapore, oblivious of the surroundings. The neon, which had always enthralled her for reasons unknown, had lost their spell! The shoppers, the merrymakers, the busy executives – all walked past her unnoticed. Their broken voices, honk of cars, the sound of her high heels hitting the pavement – could barely break her trance.

“Mridul. Mridul.”

This was one of those days when darkening clouds transported her to her forgotten past. 

To Mridul!

It had been cloudy all day. Clouds, however, thickened in the afternoon. It was 4.30 pm. She had been walking for half-an-hour now! 

A car screeched to a halt. A black BMW. The door was thrown open. “Here I am, sweetheart!”, said a known voice. She had been serving the voice for six months now. The BMW picks her up every Friday at 4.30 pm sharp, from somewhere on the Orchard Road. It had been a weekend business. The voice paid her well! “Come,” the voice got louder. 

“Mridul will have hated me for this and for all that I do now! Will he not? But what else could I have done? 

“I have kept my spirit alive! I rebelled against my father. Not for you, Mridul. You weren’t even there then. You were nowhere. Not for anyone else...! I am lost today, Mridul. Or am I?”

The dreamy eyes of Mridul, his smiling face, his unkept promise beckoned her from the horizon. 

She ignored the ‘voice’! She walked on. A big drop of rain fell on her forehead. She walked on. 

It began to rain. It rained hard. She walked on!

It has been raining in her mind! She walked on... .

........................

IV.

“The bloody hellhound! The rotten basrard! Do they not have wives at home? Mothers? Sisters?”

He almost gagged her last night. So great was his urge to satisfy his desire. He had been doing this for six nights at a stretch now. For six nights she had endured hell. She liked it at the beginning! Almost. It’s, however, hell now.

She was sitting at the corner of the pavement. It was 9 pm. Mid-September. She had been sitting there for two hours at a stretch. Hurling abuses. Playing with dust, all the while!

Occasionally she was picking up a stone and hurling it with all her might at the passing car. It had been her favorite pastime for some days. 

He had beaten her up once for doing this. “The son-of-a-bitch”!

He had coaxed her on the first night..., bought her puri-sabji in the evening..., then took her to the deserted field at the side of the highway, at the middle of the night. There were only heavy trucks plying then. No one missed the constable at the traffic intersection! It took him 10 minutes. She did not resist.

The last night, however, was unbearable. He was off duty. He tore her into shreds. So great was his lust. She shrieked. Cried for help. Fought hard to set herself free, but could not. She went through hell. “Let me lay my hands on the bustard tonight, I will cut him up in pieces,” she promised herself.

She was suffering from pain even after 21 hours of the rape. She did not even know what to do. She clutched the dust on the road with a bitter force that made her fingers ache. She spat on the pavement. She remembered his stranglehold on her last night and felt the same breathlessness. She pulled at her hair, hard. Something moved inside her abdomen. She threw up.

Rain began to fall. It washed away all that she had vomited. It was raining hard. She was wearing the yellow sari, which he had given her two nights ago.

....

A baby – a boy or a girl – she knew not, was crying at some distance! Somewhere, where it also rained. Hands took the baby away from her...! A baby was crying, as it always did. Hands took the baby away, as those always did. She heard footsteps, hurried; voices, muffled; as she always did.

... Muffled voices... baby crying... footsteps...! Hands pulling at her...!

A loud bang. Excruciating pain. Is she going blind? Pain in the head. A fall. Muffled voices. Footsteps. Hands pulling at her. A sense of loss...

Rain always brought these sounds and images to her! Of a baby crying somewhere, where it also rained.

Drenched she stared ahead. A blank, lost look!

He appeared. In a fit of rage she stood up. Then bend. Picked up a stone and threw it with brute force at him. He stepped back, bewildered. She had never been violent at him before!

She spat on him. Turned away from him. Then turned towards him. Moved a step closer. Pulled the sari away from her body and threw it at him. Spat on him again. Spat on the pavement. Turned around. Began to run! She was running with rain beating hard on her face, on her naked breasts, her abdomen, her back. She was running.

The baby was crying somewhere, where it also rained!

..............

Notes: 

Kayet, colloquial of Kayastha, a sect of people among Hindus in India. 

Shiv Mandir: Temple of Lord Shiva

Ichhamati: A river that flowed through West Bengal

Bhatiali: A genre of Indian music

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Setu, February 2025