Memories of a bygone monsoon and a rain-drenched Kolkata

It had been pouring all afternoon. I was watching my restless five-year-old son stare out of the window. I knew he was worrying that if it wouldn’t stop raining, he would miss his evening cycle with his friends. At the first sign of the rain abating, he ran and got dressed to go downstairs in the building compound to play. I pulled out his raincoat and put it on him, telling him not to take it off or he’d get wet. He squirmed, mildly protested saying it was only drizzling. I was firmer, reminding him that he was at a tail end of a cold and he’d get sick.

 So imagine my indignation when I happened to stick my head out of the window an hour later only to find him cycling at top speed with a band of eight-year-old boys on their cycles, all without their raincoats on. I yelled out to him to come up.

A very sodden little boy drenched to the core and dripping puddles of water onto our doormat showed up, clearly nervous at the chiding he would receive. As I began the anticipated scolding, all the while vigorously towelling him dry, he interrupted me plaintively saying, “I knew if I got wet I could get sick but I still wanted to have fun cycling in the rain. Ma, it was such fun. Didn’t you ever do it when you were as old as me?”

I stopped short and stared at him, flashes of memories of wading gleefully through waist-deep water in Calcutta came to my mind. It was one of those torrential monsoons in the ’80s that the ageing, crumbling city had collapsed under. All of us children in the building were thrilled because we had no school for a week. Power cuts were constant, grocery stores shut down, the vegetable market abandoned.

All the neighbours were pooling resources and sharing rations of rice and dal as each family’s rations were running dry. Finally, as the rains slowed down, with no supplies left in the kitchen, my resourceful mother blew up our inflatable swimming pool and floated it downstairs. Using brooms she used for cobwebs as oars, she let me go with her to the grocery store in our floating boat that she rowed.

Though I was seven at the time, it was a fascinating ride for me and I’ve never forgotten it. To see rows of flooded houses, children wading and swimming in a muddy swimming pool that was once the street where we lived, books, furniture and potted plants floated past me as we drifted along in our makeshift boat. We reached the grocer who had his shutter half down and bought an assortment of canned food and soups and then returned elated at the success of our plan.

I realised the fun I had that day was permanently imprinted in my memory. I’m sure that kind of rain had stressed out the adults around me, but to us children in the building, that rain spell was one of the most exciting and joyful weeks of our life.  And here I was letting my excessive worry prevent my son from creating his own bank of childhood memories. And so, with a deep breath, I told him I loved playing in the rain when I was young and he could do the same. He gaped at me for a second clearly amazed at the inconsistencies of adults but didn’t stop long enough to ask what had made me have a change of heart. He yelled out to his friends, ‘wait for me’ and was gone.

I could hear him for the next hour, laughing his head off, chasing his friends and exclaiming with delight as the rain suddenly fell harder. I’m glad I was able to make him happy instead of just being over-protective. More importantly, I had not transferred my adult worries of the downside of rain to him, managing to keep his association with rain purely his.

Another small lesson for me on my parenting journey.      

From working for Newsweek in New York to writing for dna in Mumbai, writer and editor, Rukhmini Punoose’s current full-time employers are her 5-year-old
son and toddler daughter.