Rain

- Ankur Ray Chaudhuri

The afternoon rain had clogged the city streets with muddy water that looked like black bile. People in dull raincoats and dull umbrellas paddled through the water, following the stream of busy people that kept the heart of the city beating. A mindless race, Ravi thought to himself. He was a player in this race too. A rat. A horse that moved to the whip. A tiny cog in the big plan people keep on referring to as God’s plan. He leaned on the window by the backseat of the bus. He was lucky today, he had found a seat. A wet seat drenched in the rain, but still a seat. He looked up at the countless heads that populated the bus, turning the vehicle into an oversaturated slow-moving beast. The heat inside the vehicle was unbearable, mingling with the horrid smell of sweat that poured of the bodies of the passengers pressed up against each other. There wasn’t even enough room to breathe – fresh air was cut off because all the windows were down (some passengers did not like getting ‘drenched’ in the feeble rain outside).

Ravi stared out of the foggy window, his nose and side face pressing up against the cold glass and metal that smelled distastefully like vomit. His eyes made out the ripples in the water, growing larger as the large wheels of the bus drove over the waterlogged main road. He looked at the pavement, where countless people stood with a grimace, trying and failing to protect themselves from the waves of water that lashed at them, as the busy road drove past them. They were almost half-drenched already, with their clothes sticking to their bodies in an uncomfortable way. He scrunched up his nose in disgust at the sight and turned his eyes back towards the inside of his bus.

Ravi’s phone bussed with a message. Struggling against his co-passenger (who I must say was a large sweaty man), he fished out the phone with great difficulty and switched it on. The screen flickered once and then froze at the lock screen. Ravi cursed to himself as he wiped the droplets of water that had crept onto the screenguard. After a while of cursing and patting the phone, it finally unlocked. A WhatsApp text. From his boss. Ravi scrambled to open the text, only to be met with bad news. He was being taken out of the new project that had been the talk of the office. The board did not want to leave such an influential project to a fresher who had been appointed on-campus and who would be fired the next year when the next placement would take place. The bus lurched forward as it hit a pothole hidden by the waves. Ravi was thrown up in his seat and then was returned with a resounding thud, clashing with his co-passenger. His phone slipped from his hands, fell on the bus floor and died on spot. Clenching his teeth, Ravi picked it up and gave two firm pats, but the phone declared it’s journey to paradise on the spot. Sighing in anger, Ravi stashed his phone into his pocket and slammed his head against the window, staring out again. The world was out to frustrate him or so he thought. The feeling of stiffness in his neck proved that the stress of being young and trying to be successful was catching up to him. He looked back towards the interior of the bus and his eyes fell on a singular female figure. An undoubtedly goddess-like creature. A difference among mortals. Her raven hair dropped down her shoulders in graceful waves, surrounding her beautiful round face like a coat. Her black eyes, her thin lips, her sharp nose and her creamy brown colour screamed beauty as never seen before. The black shirt she was wearing hugged her slim and yet proportionate figure beautifully, her beige trousers hiding her legs and yet making her look oddly and formally attractive. Her lips were turned up in a small smile as her head moved in small nods, matching the rhythm of whatever music she was listening to. Ravi felt like he couldn’t tear his eyes off of her. His inner mind had already began dreaming about her, how she would talk to him if they ever talked, where he would take her if she wanted to go on a date with him. And then the dreams went up in smoke as the bus stopped with a sudden lurch at a stop. The girl pushed past the crowd and went down the steps, disappearing away from his sight, bringing him back into reality. With another sigh he looked down at himself. He was healthy, neither fat nor thin. But he was not the kind of healthy girls liked. He did not have six-pack abs poking out of his shirt, he did not have a six-figure salary and he certainly did not have six-inches. He was an average ugly little thing, made to dissolve into the crowd, not stand up. Bad genes, Ravi thought. It was always better to blame the parents when he faced such obstructions. As the bus strolled down the streets, Ravi pushed himself off the seat. His stop was approaching. He picked up his bag and looked down at his oversized hunk of a co-passenger in a silent plea for some space for him to escape the prison of a seat. The man simply pushed a little back into the seat, making the poor leather and metal creature squeak. With great pain, Ravi popped himself out of the seat like popcorn and into the great hot mess of a crowd that had gathered in the short standing lane of the bus. The passengers of the vehicle rushed like mad dogs towards his empty seat, fighting like rabid idiots. Pushing past the torrent of strangers, he made his way to the gate, climbing down the steps and peeking out as the wind finally whipped his skin, soothing the sweat. As the bus slowed down and stopped, he dropped down onto the muddy watery street, being met with the rain. He looked behind at the bus and was met with a distasteful sight. The conductor, a horribly old man with balding white hair and rotting smelly skin had sunk his dirty fingers into the hand of a schoolgirl not more than 14 years of age. And the touch wasn’t anything remotely near a help for the girl to descend the steps. His large eyes stared down the girl’s body like a vulture staring at its prey. Ravi could distinctly see the man wet his lips with his discoloured betel-leaf stained tongue, his crooked teeth peeking out like daggers to sink into the supple flesh of the girl as she quickly dropped down to the stop. Ravi closed his eyes and turned away from the scene. He wouldn’t be able to do anything even if he protested. The society liked old perverts. The society stood for old perverts. He would not risk to call trouble upon himself. What if that man was a member of the local party. It was very much possible. The old perverts ran the country after all. Trying to forget the event, Ravi walked down the street, clawing at his umbrella handle. The umbrella did little to protect him from the rain. Expected. Half of the thing was covered in holes and the other half was turned upside due to a broken rib. His shirt was already drenched all the way --- he couldn’t get more drenched than this, he thought. And just when he felt he was safe from the frustration of being wet, a loud splash caused by a passing bike trying to go at supersonic speeds hit him, coating him in black muddy disgusting sewer water that smelled like feces and urine. With an annoyed groan, he wiped the grime off his face and eyes, spitting out the water that had entered his mouth. As was doing so, his eyes fell on the roadside. A dead cat. The second one this day. The sewer rats nibbled at its body, the blood already turning black. Ravi liked cats. He did not like dead cats. But who was he in front of death? Just a frustrated fresher in a big IT company working a 9-5 daily, with no personal life, no dreams, no relationships. He was nobody. Somebody but nobody. Sparing a final glance at the cat, he picked up the pace again. There was no reward in pondering over the philosophy of life in a muddy road with the rain beating down on him. “Reward, huh?”, Ravi thought to himself with a smile to himself. A cynical smile. He had begun thinking like a logical monster. Frustration and reality had succeeded in turning a human into a machine. He applauded himself for becoming like everyone. A man like every man. A hustler like the six billion in the world. A faded existence. His brows quaked with a silent rage that sometimes rose up in himself like a snake rising out of slumber. The rage made tears prickle against the borders of his eyes. He wanted to be something. Someone. He wanted to do something that left a mark. He wanted people to know him. He wanted people to admire him. He didn’t want to run around like a rat in the race that had no end. He didn’t want to die like a slave. He wanted to live as a human. He wanted to be different from the crowd of people that walked the streets like zombies, whose greatest desire was death and nothing more than death. HE didn’t want to love the noose. HE didn’t want to dream of consuming huge amounts of sleeping pills and wake up with a smile like it was the happiest thing ever. HE wanted to hope.

Ravi was frustrated. Ravi is now a block of ash by the river side. In the end the noose was his warmest embrace.