RAIN ! RAIN !

Oh heavens!!! It started raining after I reached my shed and it kept on pouring. It has been like this always. Whenever it rains, something builds up within me, something that I cannot express in words. When the clouds form a canopy in the sky and declare the arrival of rain, something very subtle and very romantic stirs within me. Given the freedom I would like to dance in the rain, or sit at home, listening to the incessant music of rain. Sometimes I think why rain brings so much of excitement with it. May be some weird people like me connect with nature and existence in a very different way, in the pure state of the whole existence or the universe. Living in an age of science and technology, when man is blindly running after petty things and material happiness, connecting with nature has become a dream. A few days ago I was sitting in the Planetarium with another fifty people. It showed how big this whole existence is and how our sun is only a small star. We are only a solar system and innumerable other solar systems would be existing beyond our belief and imagination. The vastness of the existence makes us realise how small we are, not even a speck of dust are we, yet so involved with the external world that we find our own greatness and even assert it.

In moments of leisure, I often think that one day we will have to leave this physical body and go. This mysterious universe, things inside and beyond it will exist and keep changing slowly, by human standards. We don’t know what lies beyond our planet, what lies beyond our solar system, but we see nature spread all around us in its full glory, but we don’t have time to open our eyes to these. We are busy with our small and petty lives chasing happiness which, in truth, in ever elusive. The mountain ranges, the wide rivers, the streams and waterfalls, the trees, flowers and birds, all these treasures of nature are gifts to us, but we remain entangled with our own egos, ambitions and aspirations, our enjoyments and desires and forget to count nature’s blessings. We have only one life and we don’t know even when our life will be snuffed out. The rolling seas and oceans, sunshine and rain, winter and autumn, birds flying in a formation, the beautiful expressive eyes of animals, the green corn fields, the blazing gulmohar trees in summer, the song of the cuckoo and thousand other beautiful things in nature remind us of God’s existence in numerous forms but we remain so occupied with our small little lives that we forget to communicate with nature.

I have, in my life, got the fortune of viewing the arrival of technology, in the form of refrigerators and televisions, mobile phones computers; have seen how people have drifted away from social bonding and communication towards TVs and computers. We have forgotten about God’s gifts to man. And the result is rising crime, isolation of old people,blind imitation of the west in everything except their work ethics, growing consumerism, loss of love and affection among people. Man has become an island. Still, everything is not lost. There is a possibility of growing with technology. It depends on us on how we use it without compromising on our personal and social relationships and most importantly, our bond with nature. We don’t know what lies beyond this life. So, while life is, let’s go back to our pure state and bond with nature. Let’s go back to floating paper boats in the rain water or collecting hailstones, climbing hills and travelling by boat. Nature’s purity is still intact in some parts of the world. Let’s preserve it before it’s too let to undo the damage. Let’s dance in the rain uninhibited.