The end of May

It has come at last, and without warning, the end of May. I can feel a lighter sun, I can smell an oncoming rain. I can feel Bombay’s spirit a-changing. I can remember the familiar feeling of the end of May, the end of another hot summer, the end of dull, of dreary, the beginning of hope. June brings the first rain shower, June brings a new school year, June marks the beginning of a new college term.And, over the years the transition from May to June has remained unchanged. The sun is less glaring. Mangoes are sold cheaply at traffic signals and corner lanes. Everybody runs to buy them. And, every year you wake up one May morning, the smell of full clouds, and hungry earth fill your nose… and, the rains are about to come.

I feel lighter already. I am so glad the summer has passed.I never thought I’d make it, you know? Summer is full and heavy and lethargic and terraces are especially ghastly. It makes me listless. You can sleep only so much, and read only a little.

I spent all this summer waiting for the next day. And, the day after, and the day after…thankfully, the days were not long. The days were even, and the sun didn’t linger, and the nights were early, and the Saturdays were happy, and the Sundays were curled up in bed under a light summer bedsheet and with a Murakami. There was little to laugh about, and so much to weep about.

I laughed.

There was little to marvel at, and so much to fathom.

I tried not to think.

There was so little to love, and so much to do.

I gave love responsibly.

There was no hope, and yet everybody said: This is good.

I hoped.

I believed in the days the tears didn’t fall, and the nights they slid out secretly. I believed in the tears that held back in a stoic, white Bombay clinic. I believed in Murakami and Pinto and the Sunday horoscope. I kept my faith in the bright of the sun. In the next day.

All I needed was the rain for company,

And, it is almost here.