A perfect Sunday…

…is when it is pouring outside, and you are warm and dry…relishing the world’s best filter coffee and reading a good book! But wait! Wasn’t I cribbing, just a short while ago, that the worst way to spend one’s vacation is holed up at home, stuck indoors because of the rains?

You see, it’s quite simple. Rain has marked every aspect of my life, and every point. I was named after the raga that supposedly brings rain. But, I share a rather ambivalent relationship with it. On the one hand, I love it. I love the freshness of the air we breathe; I love the wet flowers and leaves. I love seeing the colours of nature become so much greener with every spell of rain. To me, rain has always been a blessing. Every time I do something new, every time I start a new venture, the rains have arrived. My first job, and every subsequent job change, my birthday, my first trip abroad…it rained on each of these occasions; and each of them has been good to me in some way. Rain, therefore, is a benediction. Maybe the fact that I am named Amruthavarshini has something to do with it. Even if I did drop the “Varshini” over the years, to facilitate things; even if I cannot really sing the raga, despite several years of training off and on in Carnatic music.

However, it’s quite irritating when the rains cause massive traffic snarls. It’s even worse when you make plans to go out with friends, go shopping, meet people, or quite simply, spend the day at grandmom’s place. It’s much worse than you can imagine when there is something important happening in office, for which you need to be smartly dressed, but end up getting all wet and looking like a grumpy old lady! It is at such times that I wish there was no rain, that the day was bright and sunny.

But, all said and done…the rains are still like a friend, long-lost, but who will arrive, precisely when you need him most!