A MILLION GLITTERING DROPS
May 4 2008 | Views 357 |
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Tags: the first rain of the season cycle of life farmers angst nature fury whirling dervish
Tags: the first rain of the season cycle of life farmers angst nature fury whirling dervish
The glowering sun's rays hammered down mercilessly on the dry scorched earth wafting away the last vestige of moisture left by the early morning dew.The leaves wilt under the assault and the entire forest floor is littered with dried yellow brown leaves.The naked trees lift their branches as if in supplication to the Gods who rule the azure blue sky.
A whirling dervish of a dust devil appears stirring up the loose soil,blanketing everything in it's passage across the parched land.The deer nuzzles the now dead moss near the seep,too afraid to venture across the open patch near the once free flowing turbulent stream that courses across the land.The old man,his face wizened and wrinkled by the passage of many indian summers, gazes across the cracks across the cracked earth of his small patch.His eyes try to pierce the horizon in search of an elusive patch of black - rain,oh,if only.His last oxen died two days ago.The carcass lies in the dip beyond his field,stripped to the bones by the squadron of vultures ceaselessly patrolling the skies overhead.
Salvation lies with the rain! Two years of hide and seek monsoons have brought him to the end of his tether.Without it,he is doomed.His sons left for the city last year,and, he battles the whims of mother nature alone,shrinking with the daily battle that his eyes wage with the gleaming skies without a hint of pity for his predicament.
Far away over the deep blue ocean,nature makes her move,huge drafts of air pluck moisture from the vast expanse.Ceaselessly burgeoning skywards these million drops coalesce into monstrous dark clouds laced with sheets of blue lightening and grand rolls of thunder that put to pale Handels crowning glory,behold,the symphony of the Gods.
Tumbling across the coast these horde attack inwards ,leaving the white gray seas to break onto the resilient shores.Their ferocity,seen perhaps in Ghengis Khan's hordes centuries ago,is awe inspiring.They gallop onwards preceeded by howling furies leading the charge towards the dry and dusty plains.
In our little patch where all this began,an eagle cocks his head,picking a hint of the fury to come.As the breeze stiffens,he balances on his swaying perch,pushing his wings out to the wind and then gracefully soars up on the updraft with a high pitched keening whistle - hark,here it comes!
The old man shifts his eyes as his skin dried by the endless summers is caressed with a cool zephyr.His rheumy grey eyes brighten and then subside,this has come to pass for two agonising years.Then he hears the low mutter of far off thunder ,followed by the slam bang crack of lightening,his hens cackle across the yard and he says to nobody in particular,"may be today"!
A young cloud buffeted by the wind races across the land casting a momentary shadow over the land.A single drop lands on the soil and disappears without a trace as the parched land seems to suck the water from the juvinile as it vanishes in a trice.Then with the violence of Vishnu the creator and destroyer and the ascetic grace of the dancing Shiva,an ominous blackness fills the horizon,cool waves of wind waft over the denizens.The peacock unfurls his thousand eyes and his plainitive meeyow resounds through the forest,others take up the chorus,and then.. a drop falls on the last leaf of an outstreched branch.
A spatter of drops follow.The scent of "petrichor" rises in a flash,then rat-a-tat.. the cohorts unload from the clouds,their initial assault absorbed by the earth,soon rivulets appear laced with brown as the dust is washed away from her face.The tide soon turns as water gushes across the flat plain,through the dessicated gullies,glistening down the bare trunks of the shrivelled trees,through the yellow bleached grass.They roll and roil towards the dry stream bed which begins to churn a maelstorm ,like a dog of the leash.
The old man sits still ,his wizened face turned to the sky.Two drops stream from the corners of his eyes and mingle with the million glittering drops that brush past his face.His fingers unconciously seek the ground and lovingly caress the wet loamy soil - Salvation,for life goes on again!!
"For I am life and I am Death , and , that is the eternal truth"
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