Rain Raga

Beneath the banyan tree, a woman sat singing some ragas. She was singing in her melodious voice some songs that beckoned the rains. The land was dried up and devoid of any trace of life and the people draped in earth-colored cottons gathered around with the sun scorching their wheat-colored skins.

The ragas reverberated in the blazing summers and were offered to the gods of the sky and the wind and the people remembered all the occasions when the land was blessed with rain in the scorching summer season. The children from the village played by the dried up temple pond, thinking of the days where they splashed in the cool water, sat idly in the cool recesses of the rocks, or chattering with the juice of ripe mangoes oozing on their hands and faces.

The singer went on singing and the people listened to the songs that praised the advent of the rains: oh you rain; much awaited the boon of heavens that brings joy to the earth, wealth to its people, oh you rain, come with thunder and lightning and soak our brown skins with delight. Oh rain, the fulfillment of forecasts and incessant prayers, I invoke you in the names of the barren earth, the dried up rivers and lakes, the animals and birds, the silent trees and the people on earth.

The rains were invoked to end the blazing afternoons of summer heat with the first drops of summer rain and you set the warm smell of earth rising and you bedeck trees with jewels like brides, from furnace hot afternoons to nights of restless pace. It is for the rains, incense is burnt and prayers chanted and it is for you, the comforter on hot summer days. The land and the people waited for the comfort offered by the summer rains. However, the singer went on crooning the rain ragas and soon and suddenly a wind blew over the land with the trees swaying and grey and white dappled clouds rose to silhouette the sky, with hints of a sudden outburst.

With the advent of the rain clouds, the entire city rejoiced as the wait was over. The days of drought are finally over and the soft rain pelted over the crowd with bolts of thunder and lightning. The people received in open hands stretched to skies what the heavens granted as comfort from the0o scorching heat of Indian summer. The rain fell over the land and the people danced in the rain with the beaming children screaming with delight when the droplets of rain drenched their bodies.