Little showers of desire

On a flight from Chennai last night, I sat next to an old, ailing man, dressed in a lungi and hawai chappals. A tag from Apollo Hospitals was stuck to his shirt sleeve. It had his name and a serial number. He looked quite tired and bored in the first half of the flight. Till the time the pilot announced that it was raining in the destination city. The cabin lights had been dimmed by then. We hit a patch of bad weather. Most passengers were sleeping; or at least trying to. When suddenly, I hear a song: Rim Jhim Gire Sawan. My co passenger was playing the video on his phone and looking out into the dark and stormy sky as lighting sliced through the clouds. On the tray table before him was a medical report. It was obviously not a happy one. The song played. I wondered what was going on in his mind. What memories did the song evoke in the ailing man? What promises of youthful exuberance, of a lust for life and romance unleashed by the Mumbai rains and the lashing Worli waves?

The monsoons brings out the lover in all of us. It has always been about desire, as poets have sung to us saying: ‘Look at the peacock that calls out at the sight of the first rain clouds. Quench my thirst, says the bird, mad with desire.” Filmmakers have opened our eyes to the passionate embrace of the wet saree. Raveena Tandon reminded us that rains have fantastic fire power. And Mumbai taught the rest of the country that monsoons are all about madness.

I know of no other city that is as passionate about its rains. No other people who take getting drenched as seriously as Mumbaikers do. And no other megapolis — despite getting potholed, flooded, turned into a death trap every year — that can embrace the deluge like so.

There have been many artistic and popular interpretations of this passionate love affair. But none comes close to the joy and the sheer romance of the song. Two young people getting drenched in the shower of love. There was no sexual chemistry between them. Just a delightful celebration of the kind of intimacy only Mumbaikers can enjoy in the city. With a million eyes on them.

My ailing co-passenger watched the video once again. This time a little louder. No one complained. Maybe, everyone was secretly dreaming of getting drenched like that tall man and cute woman in the song.

(Scribbler, scribe, traveller Chandrima Pal takes you through the sexual landscape of today)

SPEAK UP

Did you like this?
Write to us at sexualitydna@gmail.com