When the Rain Brings Back Past Memories...

Finally, a day of endless sunshine sizzles the city after a week of endless monsoon rain turned its streets into rivers and ponds.  The countless puddles formed on the streets quickly evaporate into the air and the streets, so devoid of life during the rain quickly regains life, with families crowding into cars and outdoor shopping streets to enjoy a Sunday morning at its fullest tropical glory, thanks to the rain, feels freshly devoid of the smog that regularly blankets the city with just a few too many cars and jammed highways to facilitate (?) their use.

For someone who grew up in tropical Southeast Asia, monsoon rain must simply be a slightly irritating fact of life that only makes the rare sunshine of the rainy season all the more enjoyable and happily welcomed.  The rain is simply an expected phenomenon, not worthy of extra thoughts and distractions in the same way as commuting on the crowded highways or trains on a regular weekday.  The rain is just so frequent that there is absolutely nothing special for your regular Malaysians who saw, and will see, it coming year after year in its regular timings.

But for someone new to this unique force of nature, the act can at first be terrifyingly anxiety-causing. One simply does not know when the perpetually cloudy skies suddenly liquefies, as if above those dense dark clouds, God is just waiting to take on that gigantic shower-head at his whim and then watch mankind flee its force in panic for His personal entertainment.  The rain does start with a few spare raindrops, but the raindrops turn into a shower in matter of seconds, entirely skipping the usual stage of light drizzle.

Yet, these frightening sudden showers soon start to calm the non-tropical foreigner more than terrify him or her after a few experiences.  Especially while remaining dry in the workplace or at home, watching the showers suddenly emerge out of nowhere and the people on the street quickly dash into the nearest roof they can find, not in anger or irritation, but with a sense of mesmerizing joy and playful laughter in admiring and participating in just another bout of Mother Nature's recursive joke on her living creatures.  

The sights and sounds of the rain is just so soothing.  The onomatopoeia of splats of water on the roofs, combined with the "Shh-wa" sound of the rain intensifying into a shower, and the sound of trees blowing in the winds accompanying the rain is like an orchestra of natural voices that one can simply not get tired of.  Watching it from a dry spot as it unfurls itself right in front of one's eyes alleviates all emotional complexities, even if temporarily, and brings back fond memories of the past, in other places, associated with the rain.

Watching the rain reminds me of all the travels I have done when rain played such a factor: from hiding under a random plastic cover in front of a closed shop in Ho Chi Minh City to having my travel guide soaked through walking around the main square of Vienna in the cold winter drizzles.  It also reminds of the times when I sat on my dorm room windowsill and contemplated the future while watching the rain fall on the Yale campus...those travels and thoughts about the future are still being repeated today under the monsoon rain of Malaysia, connected to the past even though occurring in a different place.

The rain, weak or strong, infrequent or happening everyday, is after all, part of the lives for people everywhere, living in every environment and point of time.  And when that constant repeats itself under different circumstances, it somehow opens up a bridge, connecting time periods, cultures, and experiences.  It just all seem so surreal...when it rains, time seems to pass so much more slowly, and even grind to a halt as personal thoughts intensify with the rain...yet, time also seem to shift, simultaneously, back and forth, back and forth, rapidly among the past, the present, and the future...

So many have noted the monsoon rain as the major nuisance of living in the tropics.  But these people are clearly confining their understanding of the rain as simply water falling from the sky.  It is in fact much more than that.  With splat on the roof, every footstep to run to a building, and every sight of it suddenly cutting the visibility to zero and throwing one's view of the world into a magical water garden, it is providing a chance, for anyone with the heart to linger, to get away, even for a second, the comparatively microscopic worries of everyday life...