Shade, Shadows and Stories

The monsoons may be a late arrival this year but the umbrellas have been promptly retrieved from the closets. And they are flying high, bobbing up and down, beating to the rhythm of men and women on roads and pathways.

Coloured in vibrant and sometimes, not-so-vibrant tinges (also those boring blacks), each umbrella has a story to tell. There are lives of people; rich, poor and the ones in the middle. Sometimes the faces are hidden deep in the shade; sometimes they face the world sheltered from the skies and the pitter-patter of the rains. A story there always is. A tale… a life.

There is my mom who tries so hard not to get her umbrella wet. Such is her fanfare that there is always someone to open their own for her. And truly, even the heavens, the clouds seem to belong to her camp. It hardly rains when she is out!

Yesterday, there was a man walking homewards with an undersized rainbow-coloured thing. Now, this was one of those small umbrellas made especially for young kids. Hardly a match for the downpour; the poor soul got soaked inspite of all his efforts. Who knows, probably, his daughter chose to take her daddy’s Biiiiiiiiiiiiig umbrella to school for a change, and daddy had no choice but to make do.

Then there was the hip, young, stubble-sporting guy with what a rocker of an umbrella! In multiple hues, it was a show-stealer. In the evening peak-hour crowd too, one couldn’t have missed it. Even with closed eyes. If umbrella were categorized in sizes, this would be mega – it could easily give refuge to an entire battalion. Make way people, for the attention-seeker. Through some astronomically baffling calculation, the umbrella and the proud owner seemed to suit each other to a tee.

While these were stories beneath the umbrella, sometimes the umbrellas themselves are THE stories. In life, we carry our umbrellas with us. Through the different phases, we face each situation and with each of these, we either don our umbrellas or decide to shed them. Various unspoken decision we take, at different turns in the cycle of life – to keep mum for the happiness of a loved one or to speak out to save the situation. The introverted emerge from beneath their covers with utmost care. Whereas for an extrovert, life is about open skies.

We change and adapt according to circumstances. At times, we are bowed by the obstacles and the trials we face. Fear makes us hide, holding us back from the rainbows of the world. Often, we forget that we might after all have the potential.

Life’s too short to be cowed down. Lift the umbrella of fear, worry, anxiety and the sun with its warmth would reach out to you.
Why be scared of the rain at all? In the worst case, you’d only get wet! How bad can that be?