memories

Every monsoon season in Delhi, it rains like crazy. And you await it. When it comes, trees are washed clean and you see a rare shade of green. Our house with its floor made of marble, transformed into a wet playground. The first rain arrives and my brother is ready, he's ready because he knows the drill. I'm ready too. The first shower, it's going to be cold, a bit acidic. Mom tells us- “it's acid rain, do not go outside right now”, we don't care, it's time, long-awaited. The marble flooring of the house, super slippery, and we have a sport. We have a sport we invented, we rigorously start wiping, cleaning the marble, removing any small sharp stones- they are the danger. As the rain falls, we use the rainwater to speed up the process, make it smooth, the marble. This long stretch of marble flooring, right where the rain falls, is perfection. We take off our clothes, and we start slipping and sliding on the marble, it's not on the foot, we get down, we lay down, like swimming almost, like fish. Then we push off from one wall, against one wall, we put our foot and just push off, and we slide all the way, like 20 meters to the other side, and then slide back, and within games there are games. In this monsoon raining, we are on this marble, sliding away, then once in a while, it would be that my brother is on the other side of the marble flooring, and I'm on this side, and it's raining, and it's pretty epic, because now we are sizing each other up. We are going to cross each other while sliding, and it's going to be a battle. In the middle, we will meet, and then we try to get each other, play-fight, and then go to the other side. Whoever got more like hurt was losing or something, it was like jousting almost, like knights.

Roaring monsoon- a time of innocence, adventure, and the purest form of happiness.