Give me my liberty or give me a sandwich.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Guys don't buy umbrellas

Me and my roommate has this nice ritual of exchanging, "have a nice day", each morning before we leave for work. But today she said, "stay dry". It was raining outside and I didn't have an umbrella. There is something about guys and umbrellas. We somehow just don't stick. Its not that I have never bought umbrellas. I have lost more of them than I have bought. Obviously rest belonged to the others.

Rain is not something new to me. I have lived 4 years in a place called Silchar. In there, it rains sometime, its rains lot more and then it does not rain a few times. In a nut shell, it pours. Of those 4 years I had an umbrella for about 6 months, notcontinuouslys. In Silchar if youdon'tt have an umbrella, you literally have two choices in life. Slug it out (get wet) or live it out (wait till the rain is over). Most of us belonged to the later school. Time is never something you are short at, when you live in Silchar. So rain was just another opportunity to have some more tea and little more friendly discussions, sometime about Parveenpoon Tarang, often about answers to more imminent problems the world was facing.

But today I was not in Silchar, I was in New York. Living it out was not the easiest of choices. It was raining like its going to get me finally. But 4 years of Silchar in a man are huge. They won't let you fail in dire circumstances. Right across the street where I was holding my head high against the downpour, a shop sells umbrellas. I admit I was tempted. But there is no glory in giving up, letting go, compromising. Afterall glory is what a man lives for. That thought kept me going, when all others had ceded to the invasion of condensed moisture. I am proud , once again for my fellow warriors, I stood the ground.