Raining Thoughts

              It was one of those slapstick moments of life when my husband’s aunt pulled out the chair on which I was about to park myself, from right underneath my bottom. Swish! Plop! A crash landing right on the floor.We both were lost in our respective conversations to different people, when I thought to sit and chat comfortably and simultaneously our aunt felt that it would be better to grab a chair to get a better look at all of us ‘seated’ around the table. My gleeful husband lent me a hand & at the same time congratulated me heartily on this achievement. On taking a 180 o  sweep of the surroundings I could see that our cousins were also trying hard to suppress their bubbling laughter. I rose up from the other end of the table, with my picture-perfect 32-teeth grin and a crushed bum, with a highly apologetic aunt hovering over me, apologizing profusely and trying to pull me up even after I was back on my two feet.I tried to calm her down, telling her that it was a high

                                                        The year was ending with a twist. And the twist came in the form of rain. Trivandrum rains have always been a beautiful sight to behold, especially to the tired after-office eye. Most evenings were blessed amply with a fair amount of rain or at least a slight drizzle, which made my short walks from the bus stop to my home through the lane a pleasurable or a deplorable experience, depending on factors like the centimeters of rain received, wind speeds (to fly or not to fly with a flipped umbrella) as well as my ability to dodge the mud-splashes contributed by passing motorists.                               One evening it so happened that I was late by an hour and dusk had set in. The rainy skies only served to darken the scene further. The streetlights were not yet lit and I was at my regular dodgy best, maneuvering myself smoothly across pools and puddles. There were hardly any people out of doors and the roads wore