A THOUGHT PROVKING DAY!

It was grey all around! I mean, the most perfect shade of grey anyone has ever laid their eyes on. It was perfect. By grey I do not mean that the heart of the observer was filled with so much sorrow, that his whole world had crashed and burned around him and that his heart had broken irreparably. No! I mean the overall view was so “heavy” and thought inducing that one could not help but think about the past. It somehow forced the reel of the tape to rewind with a pencil and forced you to live through your most thought proving moments. Your Top 10 Moments! 

The view from the sixth floor of the apartment building at four o clock that evening was indeed thought provoking. The rain had slowed down into a gentle shower, silent but persistent, like a very efficient employee letting his actions, rather than words, do the talking. Approximately 1.5 Kms towards the North West of the apartment building, the massive ‘Vidyasagar Setu’ across the Hooghly river had come back into view after the opaque rain curtain had slid back up into the clouds, with the iconic ‘Welcome’ sign on top of the bridge, still silhouetted but legible. The wisps of clouds immediately above the area streaking across the near-distance sky seemingly in a hurry to get home as though they too had been delayed by the preceding thunderstorm, not very unlike the vehicles that could now be seen on top of the bridge. 

The whole ground around the building, across the perimeter road, was saturated with standing water, not muddy and turbid, but brilliant reflective water hiding in plain sight between the perfect carpet grass. It’s presence only seen in places where the grass cover was thin and which were still being peppered with rain. The well pruned grass, which seemed disciplined in its bearing, was green, shiny and full of life. The whole area beyond the grassy patch was encircled with an area of thick, full trees. No half measures there. The trees, seemed old, quite old, and seemed as if they had made friends with the grass, which had now creeped and climbed it’s way on top of them to have a better view from ‘up there’. God knows how many ants, spiders and snakes hid behind those thick creepers, as though they were the dirty little secrets that any true and long friendship has. These secrets are generally well hidden from the world and only shared among each other when a bottle of scotch is opened, as aromatic and intoxicating as this afternoon’s rain. The tree cover seemed endless. It spread till the bridge and beyond with a different endless array of black water tanks, damp moss-covered walls of apartments, dark windows, high rise buildings, tin & plastic roofs of sheds of various solid colors, old white colonial era watchtowers and overhead tanks. 

If not for the heavy gloom that only a four o'clock thunderstorm and streetlights can bring to a city, one might have thought that this is a nice little part of the world to live in. Not this time, not today. On the other side of the apartment, down below, an old amma was carefully wading across the grass, across the remnants of a disused concrete badminton court, of which dirty blue paint had started to peel away, towards a mango tree, to collect the mangoes that were strewn about underneath, probably for chutney later. A partially constructed building whose foundation had just been laid stood drowned in muddy water along with heaps of fly-ash bricks, sand and aggregate, with its naked shutter-less iron rods sticking out of the water like sunken ships with their sails torn. 

The peculiarity about sudden late-afternoon thunderstorms is that it signals the end of the day quite early and abruptly, not giving the living beings enough chance to properly close out their day, which is generally at about six o clock. Therefore, in a sense, it does not give an appropriate closure to someone towards his day, the day that he had so carefully planned at the start. The day ends abruptly and quite suddenly, like the untimely death of a loved one. One is cold, wet and left stranded wherever he is at that moment, alone in his thoughts about what the day might have been. The colors of the sky are no longer seen, the birds go missing, the unnatural look of vehicle headlights, streetlamps, house lights all at a time seem very out of place and makes one wonder if he has suddenly been transported to a very different world that he can no longer recognize. Physically and superficially the world still looks the same, but the emotional connection, the warmth is suddenly lost. Quite like two lovers, together for years and then suddenly one falling out of love with the other. 

Since the fifth afternoon thunderstorm of the week had died down into a steady rain, distant ambulances could now constantly be heard on the two main roads which were towards West and South east of the building. As the sky grew darker still with threat of more strong winds and rain, their Blue and white lights could also be seen streaking silently across the bridge, certainly carrying someone’s loved one for his yet another struggle of the day, this time at the hospital. 

The weather truly was Melancholy!