Drap Rain

It has been drizzling.

It has been raining for five hours.

This is the sentence they used in school to teach present perfect continuous tense. But probably the sentence most mentioned in the whole tense lesson was “The patient had died before the doctor came”, or “The doctor had come before the patient died.”

Which one is the worse among these two? Do we want the doctor to arrive before the patient dies, or after? Why would the patient die after the doctor arrives? What is his job then? How come he always sucks at it? The patient always dies, eh? Before or after, that is the variable factor here. The dying part is constant.

Coming back to the rain again. Here comes the rain again was one of our favorite songs when we stepped into the glorious period in life called the teenage. It was a supreme feeling, going out into the rain and getting soaked as a whole. The romantic encounter of “The Notebook” used to be one of the fantasies we used to worship. There was another song too where the lyrics be like “Your tears don’t fall, they crash around me!” These scenes and songs would compel us to go into the rain with headphones on. But alas! We didn’t have waterproof gadgets then. This fascination remained a fantasy, mostly. Now there’s rain in almost every season, even winter. We use waterproof gadgets, but we don’t feel the urge of drowning ourselves in the massive downpour.

Rain smells, or should I say, rain brings about the smells of nature. Be it an urban setting, or a rural one, it has a fascinating capability of getting out the raw versions of substances. Raw, pure versions. There’s a natural attraction attached to it. We love uncut, untouched things. Virginity is worshipped among a large number of us. To be honest, rain brings forth the best versions of nature, in that aspect. Every green becomes a bit greener, every leaf a bit lovelier, every puff of air a bit more refreshing, every dust of soil a bit more smelly than it usually is. Those smells are more enticing than those lab rat perfumes. It’s a weird cycle. We advance our civilization only to reach excellence in laboratories, making more artificial things, and at the end of the day, come back to the original version of nature. That’s why the eco-resort business is a thing in the first place! We pay a premium to come close to nature, whereas we had abandoned it in the first place.

It has been raining for five hours.

The statement is a lie. It has not been raining for five hours. It has been drizzling for a while and the world stopped to a standstill. That’s why it can’t be five hours. No chance.

It doesn’t rain for five hours anymore. The earth is dry and barren. Scientists say that we are victims of global warming now. I say the term should be global worming. See? The internet says that worming isn’t a proper word here, and it is giving me an error warning while I am using it after the word global. We human beings are like worms. We are penetrating everything and everyone else and killing the rains bit by bit. A worm keeps sucking the life out of its host slowly, in small phases. Just like we have been doing to our host- mother earth.

Science can be depressing, eh? Let’s be clever about it, and forget science for a bit. Let’s explain this phenomenon with something else. After all, scientists are the greatest fools among us. They don’t talk, socialize, communicate. They are just like shy worms, cluttering together, trying to survive amongst themselves, without the interaction of the outer world. Fools thought the rain was science. But it is not. Rains are tears accumulated. We as humankind have been so decisive over the years that now people don’t have space to cry. We kill them before they have a chance at it. The latest bombs and other weapons keep getting better. Girls are being killed off after rape so that they don’t have to cry later on. Whole areas are being bombed so that no survivors are left to remember and cry over the dead souls. Even animals are being butchered in a faster, more efficient manner. All these to reduce tears on this earth, and guess what? We have been successful so far! Tears are less, and rains are too!

It has been raining since … uh, I am not sure for how long. But this is not the kind of rain I’d love most. I love the stormy ones most. They cleanse the sin out of your heavy chest, and make your soul float in the air, like a baby angel. You feel the rush of wind on your invisible wings, and you want to fly far away, just like a birdie.

But this rain is not like that. It’s a slow, depressing, heavy procession like the long-hidden complaints of a lover. Full of love, jealousy, pain, and hunger. They keep dampening your spirit, and all other things out there, showing who’s boss. You become a passive element then, hiding away in your couch, inside yourself, cuddling yourself. It’s draining and demanding. I don’t have a proper adjective to justify this type of rain.

Why is drap not a word? Maybe it should be called Drap Rain.