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It was William Shakespeare, who in his monumental work ‘Pericles, Prince of Tyre’, first wrote the words ‘Rain rain go away. Come back another day... or at best give us a couple of hours notice’.

But the same Shakespeare does a complete turnaround elsewhere in his works. The bard (for those who have come late. DNA sampling has proven there were four of them. Five, if you count a poor cousin who, truth be told, was a midget) pours praise on the innumerable virtues of the rain.

This brings us to the same question that Romeo asked Juliet, Porus asked Alexander, and recently Dr Manmohan Singh asked Vladimir Putin: Is the rain a saint or a sinner? Good or evil? Or, in plain simple Aramaic words, should we embrace rain or run from it?

The answer to this in all languages remains the same, ‘Umbrella’. To explain
further, let’s turn to a local Mumbai rain expert Dr Kawas K Kanga, who loved the rain so much he named his third son Precipitation, much to the boy’s embarrassment, as his elder siblings were called Phiroze and Kaizad.

The rain is your friend, the rain is a large giant cold shower. Cold? Let’s not exaggerate, it is colder than your average bath water but less cold than your mother-in-law. (By the way, Dr Kanga does not specify if the mother-in-law in question was taking a bath at the time when her coldness was being measured).

The best way to enjoy the rains is to remove all clothing of yours. In the case of a rain and you wanting to really enjoy it, the maxim preached by that great gifted Thespian, student and translator of Brecht Hugo and Balzac, Rakhee Sawant should be considered. The maxim, of course, is “less is more”. The less you wear, the more you and the rain will benefit from each otherscompany.

However, since only half of Mumbai’s population works in Bollywood, and it is difficult for the other half to get over classically conditioned consciousness and awkwardness. For such people, a simple Umbrella will suffice. Enjoy the rain and the rain will enjoy you!

That folks, was the last word on rain by Dr Kanga, who lost two wives to thunder showers and has ever since remained eternally grateful.

Let’s then go ahead and enjoy themonsoon.

I’ll end with George Bernard Shaw's thoughts on this subject which are perhaps the best sounding among all theEnglish language phrases after ‘Maria Carey will not be singing tonight!’

Shaw wrote Rain is falling chum chum chum....