Love, Longing and Mumbai Rains

Published: 17th May 2025

Category:Relationships

Woke up to the sound of heavy rain lashing out today morning in Bombay. Mid May rain shower in Bombay is not traditional but was a welcome escape from the sultry heat this year.

As I stood in my balcony overlooking the garden, I thought that rain, is not just weather. Its an elemental emotion which strips our world of its pretense. All the clean and polished edges of life melt down.. Leaves and branches fall, roads glisten, clothes cling and hair sticks. Rain exposes us – not in a harsh or cruel way but in a manner which is impossibly tender. Each one of us pause at the first rain and we take a moment – just to savour it .

It invokes a flood of emotions.. to some its nostalgia. It carries the scent of wet soil, a “perfume” that triggers memories as vivid as lightning.

There is a reason poets cannot stop writing about rain. Its the most romantic gesture universe has known. Theres something intimate and raw about how it comes unannounced, cloaked in clouds and long silences before it pours its heart out across earth.

Its as if every drop has wanting, waiting, longing, release and relief all together.

The sky loves the earth but cannot touch her. It tears itself apart and collapses into droplets and falls – over and over and over again to touch her skin. The earth in turn responds with blossom and bounty, her body brimming with life. Its from this trembling exchange between them that seeds awaken, rivers are born and forests breathe. Every fruit that we eat, every flower that we marvel at, begins from this affection. Its proof that true love makes things live. Its unfiltered desire transformed into creation.

Rain here becomes more than romance. Its lust refined with grace, a yearning that doesnt scorch but nourishes. Lightning is the gasp, thunder the groan and rain is the surrender / release. There is no vulgarity here – just beauty, depth and tenderness. The kind that lovers seek but rarely find.

Rains make us bold and reckless and soft and playful all at the same time. When it pours it erases the unnecessary amidst a couple. There is no small talk, no make up, no posturing, just presence, just skin, just “us” and a kiss that doesnt ask to be remembered but refuses to be forgotten. Its sweat, saliva and water all tangled into something strangely pure and honest.

May be thats why we love rain. Because in the wet chaotic unguarded moment, we return to something primal. We become like the sky and earth aching for connection, shameless in our hunger, ready to give and receive without needing anything to be perfect.

So next time when the skies break open, don’t run for shelter. Let it touch your skin and enter your soul. That’s not water falling. Thats the universe making love and life starting again.