Manu Remakant moves through the city to harvest the first rain in the summer
A wave of relief washed over the city when heavy rain lashed today evening, putting an end to the long wait for the clouds to deliver. The rain along with lightning and thunder was raging late into the night. Due to feeder snags, power supply was disrupted in many parts in Trivandrum. The authorities told Yentha that that the problem would soon be solved.
The cloudy sky in the late afternoon failed to catch any particular attention as it had been like this for many days.
“Chummatheya. It won’t rain,” said Vijayan, who runs a teashop near the Secretariat, dejectedly, as he rinsed glasses for filling another round of piping hot tea. The crusted earth on the sidewalk was littered with a few ragged newspaper bits. A few dirty polythene covers laboured to rise in vain imagining a wind.
On the roads heads were fuming inside helmets, eyes moist with the trickling sweat peered through the visor for the green signal to appear. City buses like hot oven, street dogs tired and relaxing under whatever shade they could find, sprawling trees with their wilted leaves–the heat was on a rampage until today evening.
When the first few drops fell, Vijayan craned his neck up and repeated, “It won’t rain.” A thick expanse of rain pat answered him, splattering on the road. The business has only begun. The heavy sheets of rain took no respite as they lashed across everything they found. Soon the smell of the new, lacerated earth wafted up from the ground.
Bewilderment led to jubilation. Some tried to run for cover. Many stayed back giving themselves to the seductive allure of the first rain indulging their wild side.
Yentha decided to soak its skin to capture the beauty of the city rain blasting away the summer heat. On bike.
Many motorcyclists were seen taking off their helmets to get wet and ride on. It was unmissable. There was a soothing slosh of water as the vehicles moved by. The rain moved vertically, diagonally and finally horizontally in columns, drenching everything on its way to water.
At Kaithamukku, the rain spoiled the evening business of a vendor of tender coconuts, but his face was far from sad. Under the murky under-passage at Palayam, a few motorcyclists were waiting for the rain to end. But this rain, no. Thampanoor was slowly rising to its reputation of being the flood capital of the capital city.
At East Fort the policemen were caught unaware by the downpour. Without overcoats, many had taken cover inside tea shacks, leaving the already messy traffic to mind its own business. A woman was seen struggling to cross the road at Attakulangara with her children trying to evade the crust of waves as the cars whiz by.
At Manacaud, a dozen street dogs hunched together on the middle of the road, puzzled. The rain squall hits the women waiting at the bus stop. One was struggling to get into a bus,but for the umbrella which had turned inside out. Despite the troubles, everyone was seen enjoying the long-awaited guest.
For a Trivandrumite, it seems ages since he has crawled into his bed under the blankets, listening to the rain lashing on his windows in all its auricular glory. Tonight he will.
Source: yentha.com
A beauty………