Rainy days at the house

The cyclone is moving towards the south west of TamilNadu and gales with lashing winds and heavy rains are forecast for TamilNadu in the next few days.

Rain at the Dhamayanthi household was a spectacle to be enjoyed.

One could sit at the dining tables and watch the rains wash the godown's sloping roof in torrents. The walls would turn damp and cool.

The dash to the toilets right at the end of the house used to make aaya mad at us. We would love to get wet in the rain, but usually at the cost of a tongue lashing from aaya.

The other beautiful thing used to be the long clotheslines extending across the long courtyard. The moment, clouds gathered in the horizon, we all had to rush and collect the clothes. I remember burying my face in the sundried clothes and inhaling the scent of the sun on the clothes. They would have to be taken to aaya's small cot, where many hands would willingly fold them. In fact, I learnt the art of folding clothes there, as I cuddled near aaya and was shown how to make the folds - with the edges touching just so and the sleeves parallel to one another and the folding of the dhothis - ah, that privilege was given to just a few. We would hold the edges and carefully come closer bringing the edges together in geometrical precision. They would have to look as if they had been ironed out.

During some unusually long and dry summers, buckets were put out to collect the rain water. Plop...plop...they fell in a musical rhythm.

The ice katti malai was another happy natural phenomenon. The patter of hailstones, as they fell on the tinsheets of the adjoining godown which housed thaatha's textile mill bundles and bales, somehwere to the middle of the roof from the ground, would cause excitement. That was when I heard the old housewives tale that hailstones are good for scorpion bites.

The coolness of the courtyard was enjoyed during the nights by those who vied for aaya's small cot in the tiny hall that opened out to the courtyard.

Were there hot vadais or pakoras or anything like that? I don't particularly remember them on rainy days, because they were inevitably made for the evening tiffin and I guess the luxury of a pakora could not have been possible in that very large household that had set dining times.