Paper boats in rains

 The child in me used to love the rain. Drop by drop it accumulated in our garden. Forming puddles where I floated the paper boats. Squatting in the quelchy mud and hearing the crack and scream of thunder. These days the drops have acquired an alien quality in this mammoth of a city. Still I somehow love the wipers moving against the screen. The slippery road, erratic traffic and the smell of wet earth. My mother used to say rain brings life, brings fervour, it initiates, heralds new beginnings. Every time it rains in the city, I miss that nook that I carved for myself . The pretty little garden. The soaked plants that we planted in the long intervals of summer holidays, watered with a regularity of a station clock. I miss the simplicity of the mud castle that we built. It had disproportionately huge rooms with hardly any figurines. Who would have guessed someday the emptiness of the mud hut would echo the emptiness and purposelessness of the city existence.