An almost forgotten memory, curled up and gathering dust in some unvisited nook of my memory lane, has resurfaced suddenly.
It is midday. The sky is painted in thick strokes of grey. The wind is mindlessly playing with the litter strewn across the length and breadth of this dishevelled metropolis, picking them up from one place and carrying them to another with utmost unkindness. I can tell from its howls that a storm is imminent. I close the window to stop the dust from getting inside. I am supposed to get back to my assignment but the unforeseen arrival of this memory has thrown things into chaos.
1
On a windy monsoon afternoon years ago, I was at our village home, huddled together with my cousins in our yard, by the clay stoves in which the afternoon tea was brewing. A“bhooter golper ashor” (a soiree for ghost stories) was underway. While everyone’s attention was gripped by the story Abul’s mother was narrating, I still remember how our hands competed for the narus laid out on a melamine plate before us. Our storyteller was recounting the incident of how our possessed aunt was exorcised.
She had just started describing the segment where the imam extracted two bronze amulets from my aunt’s navel. Sealed in wax, inside them were tiny parchments with bizarre inscriptions. At that point, four grown-up men were struggling to restrain my frail aunt, who was yelling curses at everyone in a masculine voice.
The foxes crouching behind nearby bushes howled ominously in unison. Dark clouds floated in from afar and hovered over our yard. Abul’s mother claimed she had got blisters in her palms after touching my aunt.
As we were listening to every word of this story, a jolt of lightning struck the palm tree on the edge of our yard with an ear-splitting sound. At once, heavy rain poured down on us—precisely the dramatic touch-up the story deserved! We rushed inside instantly. I remember my grandmother having forcefully wiped my head with a towel. My eyes, however, were fixated on a cobweb at the corner of the room where a chubby spider was brooding. The blue specks in its abdomen seemed to be glistening.
We settled ourselves in grandmother’s bed and embarked on a new game that entailed discovering shapes from the shadows cast on the wall. With every stroke of the wind, the candlelight swayed and the shadows metamorphosed. It was a fast-paced game.
I remember feeling soothed. The rain often had that effect on me.
I’m amazed by the meticulousness of this flashback, the way it presented such an immaculate reconstruction of a run-of-the-mill day long forgotten. How often does this happen?
2
Since childhood, I’ve been an ardent admirer of the monsoon. Growing up in a congested city apartment that was always scorching hot, I genuinely relish in the fleeting moments of cool weather ensuing from the rain. Cosying up in bed under a quilt, watching Courage the Cowardly Dog while munching on cookies is my ritual.
I declutter my bed and open the windows. The squally winds have given way to a soothing rain—its gentle embrace instantly lifts my mood. I feel like unwinding for a while. I decide to revisit another fond memory.
It was the eve of a cousin’s wedding, during a monsoon years ago. My youngest maternal uncle got into our pond with my “born and bred in Dhaka” cousins to teach them how to swim.
Seeing them have the time of their lives in the water during what was promised to be gruelling training, others dipped their toes into the water, too; it started with toes but stopped only when everyone was waist-deep in water and thoroughly drenched from a game in which they were splashing water on each other.
Everybody—my maternal uncles, aunts and cousins—jumped into the water one by one. Allured by their infectious fun, I crawled out of my quilt, ignoring possibilities of my sneezing to death. My mother and aunt, who had cut up freshly picked guavas, were astonished to find none lurking around the kitchen for the delicacies. They were amused to see everyone in the pond. They spontaneously devised an innovative way to treat us—they tossed the fruits into the water from the bank while we frantically raced to catch them with our mouths. As if we were a shoal of hungry fish and they, crafty fisherwomen.
While the game was gathering momentum, the sky tore open. My chhoto khala broke into a song in her melodious voice. We listened to her in awe, clapping and whistling. Then we joined voices in chorus, unabashed about our loud, out-of-tune singing.
I was neck-deep in water. From my neck down, the water was blissfully warm. Whereas the raindrops striking my head were icy cold. The way these contrasting temperatures blended in with my body with profound symmetry, filled me up with an unearthly comfort. At that moment, I felt such a peace of mind that all my sadness had evaporated.
Years later, when I read The Perks of being a Wallflower and encountered this quote by its protagonist, “And in that moment, I swear we were infinite,” the memory of our shenanigans in the pond was the first thing to flicker across my mind. What I experienced at that idyllic hour perhaps constituted moments that were infinite.
3
A similar feeling re-emerged while touring Cox’s Bazaar with my childhood friends.
It was our farewell tour. We were at that critical juncture of life whereupon we were to pursue different paths. A tight-knit group like ours was about to drift apart. We weren’t ready yet to come to terms with that.
On a cloudy afternoon, we headed for the beach, planning on having a mature conversation by the ocean. But upon reaching the beach, we just stood shoulder to shoulder in silence, letting the foamy waves wash our feet. Not a word oozed out of anyone. Then the rain began to pour down—the ultimate theatrical touch it had been adding to my life’s most important moments.
The landscape transformed—the beach became a mirror as the sand absorbed the rainwater. The sea’s roars intensified. The wind kept blustering around, with rain pellets hurling at our faces. The cosmic beauty of the sea and the rain cleared the world of all the dirt and gloom.
None of us budged. We stood still, shoulder to shoulder, torn up by grief from the smothering weight of going our separate ways but exceedingly proud of each other’s accomplishments.
4
My mother arrives with the afternoon tea—she looks troubled. I don’t ask her anything, fearing it might touch a sore spot.
When I was five years old, one evening, she dropped me off at my aunt’s. An hour later, following convulsions, I fainted and my aunt rushed me to a hospital.
When my mother received a call to learn about this, she instantaneously darted out of the house, indifferent to the storm outside. She couldn’t waste a second to wear her sandals, let alone an umbrella. There was no transport in sight either. I was surprised when she told me this—I’ve always known her to be composed during crises.
As I sip my tea, I let my surroundings fade away to that dismal monsoon evening. A woman in her home clothes, barefoot, distraught with anxiety, running through the streets amid a frightening storm.
I saw the chilling rain drilling through her gentle flesh. I saw the open manholes buried underneath knee-deep water, eying her with malice. I saw the darkness plotting to stall her motion. I heard the deafening screams of the lightning castigating her for ignoring its might.
But she kept running, unperturbed by the chaos.
She was the mightier storm.
Kazi Md Shaimul Reza is final year MBBS Student, Dhaka Medical College.
