Painting the skies

A typical early morning..... no dont imagine sun rise, tweeting birds, or quiet roads. It was a typical working early morning--honking of huge vegetable trucks, the wholesale bhaji walis dashing across the road and the occasional garbage van leaving for their daily rounds.

The car screeched to a halt behind a large yellow "Horn OK Please" , after observing and re-observing the pink lotus designs painted on the truck, the car managed to cut lanes and get ahead.....only this time to be stuck behind "Raja and Rani".

There were a string of taxis-she resigned to the fact that this was going to take a while. The entire stretch of the road is flanked by kothmir and methi (corriander and fenugreek respectively) sellers, and the smell is almost pungent and always gets one coughing.

Overhead the dark clouds floated by, but not a single drop fell, their destination was elsewhere. Her eyes wandered to the further skies a dark set of clouds were approaching covering the sun. She said the word -- 'Ghayath' (rain). Like a chant, Ghayath. The honking stopped, the road blurred, with her whole soul into the power of the word, Ghayath.

The first few drops of rain fell, she continued to chant, and put her hand outside the window to feel the creation. Her eye followed a drop as it fell onto the tip of her finger and slid gently down to the mount of her palm, just then a silver car skidded to a stop in the lane besides her. Her eyes wavered to see the driver, his eye was fixed on the last quarter of the sun going behind the clouds, but his lips were chanting, fervently chanting.

She didn't need to be Nostrodamus to know what he was chanting. The clouds slowly began to turn, and the drizzle grew fainter as the sun glared back onto the now completely covered kothmir street.

Honnnnnkkkkkk-everything came back to life, the babble of the wholesale sellers, the beggar kids playing in the muck, the crude marathi chatter. In that second, the silver car cut into her lane and sped away on the open road ahead. The realization of obnoxious smell lead her into a coughing frenzy, dotted with the abuses from the car drivers behind.

The car purred into the first gear finally, she looked into the rear view mirror and her eyes stopped at the unmistaken sight of the tip of a rainbow. She stopped the car to the side and got out- to see the glorious band of colours stretched across the skies.

She smiled. She sighed.

It would be a long time before she could create a rainbow on her own.