Category: 2020

Rhythm

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I love Formula One. I’ve been following the sport for a while, perhaps, 2008/09, when the Force India entry was announced. However, I have memories of watching the sport from even further back. The old Star Sports used to telecast races, and over my summer vacations, where it was difficult to get me away from the television set (only my grandfather could), I’ve watched several replays of races and Schumacher and Alonso wins. It’s why I can connect with the sound of the old Formula One engines. A large part of my childhood desire to become an automobile engineer stemmed from Formula One. In fact, my paternal grandmother has the earliest car design I did. I drew a sketchy McLaren F1 (SLR) with a Sky Blue finish (basically colouring in with sky blue).

What I admire about Formula One drivers among several things is that I’ve noticed them talk about driving as a matter of rhythm – of settling into a rhythm with a particular circuit and your own car. Athletes talk about this often, in several different ways, referring to this as a “zone” they enter, or something of the sort. Drivers talk about this in terms of how they ensure they’re consistently hitting their racing lines – especially in wet weather conditions. Building that rhythm means you end up settling into a groove where you keep track of movements and observe them so closely that you’re hitting your marks every single time.

I attended Athletics training for a few months in April-May 2014. Me, an athlete. My mother forced me to go because I needed to stay in shape (I quit quickly) and we knew the coach. That was the first time I learned about rhythm – while running. He pushed us to “lift off” at certain points on the run, and we had to go flat out, essentially training our body to select gears at different points on a run.

Today, I ran around solo on the field inside my gated community. Running in circles gets really repetitive after a while, but the thing I was trying to do today, was to see if I could hit the same spots on the field every time I came around – every lap I did. To be like a Formula One racer, except with my feet. Like a racing line I had to follow.

It took a few laps of conscious effort, which soon descended into subconscious effort. My run tracker seemed to take notice because I couldn’t differentiate between laps on the run – they overlapped.

I settled into a rhythm while running today, through some external help. Long may it continue.

Metamorphosis

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I killed a cockroach today.

I was picking up some books I had to study – right off the surface of my desk, when I saw a dark brown colour, contrasting against the pale wood of the tabletop. I moved toward it, and it moved away. Instantly, I was aware that this dark brown thing was alive, and I rushed down to the ground floor bathroom to collect my Hit! spray, while saying a silent prayer that the insect, whatever it was, remained in place till I got back. I climbed back up, 2 steps at a time, and got back to my room, back in position, spray in front of my body, only to see that it was a cockroach. I sprayed violently, furiously, dousing all my books in Hit! spray (which has the loveliest lemon scent). The cockroach was unnerved, it moved into the spray, moved around, and continued, well, living. Unaffected by all my spraying. I looked at my Hit! spray’s label. It said for flies and mosquitoes only.

I was flabbergasted. My only weapon was useless. I tracked the cockroach’s movements, as it fluttered around and elected to open up its wings, almost tauntingly. My eyes darted with its every move. The cockroach moved to the floor, and I instantly jumped back, worried it would come at me.

I’ve been wearing the same chappals in my house for the past 8 years. These heavy, brown, orthopaedic chappals, which were meant to (and did successfully) aid my flat foot. I moved one foot up, slowly, and brought down my full weight onto the cockroach, which was heading for my beloved piano. I was sure I had crushed it, and raised my foot. The cockroach scurried away, seeking refuge in a small gap between my piano and my desk. I took off the chappal. It was in my hand, and I jabbed at the cockroach a couple of times, ensuring I had taken away its ability to move.

Satisfied, I sat down on my beanbag. This was the most barbaric, aggressive, violent person I had been, and I texted my parents to relay all this information to them, to speak to them to clear my frustration.

One hour passed. I was calmer now. Drinking a lot of water had helped.

I went to charge my phone, right by my piano. I saw the cockroach continuing to writhe away. I got my dustpan, picked it up, and tossed the cockroach away to the curb.

Sitting on my beanbag now, all I’m thinking about is why I tried to kill it so. What was it about this little brown creature that induced so much anger in me, and why?

As I’ve said several times on this blog, I visited India every summer break to stay with my grandparents growing up. I have several fond memories of all of those trips. However, no matter how much I try, I cannot dislocate the position that cockroaches have occupied in my memory. They were everywhere in my grandparents’ house. In the kitchen, in the halls, in the bedrooms, in the bathrooms. I felt unsafe, intruded upon, hurt. At night, I felt fear – that one of those things would scurry up my legs, with their little feet, or, walk up my body and perch themselves on my nose, their home for the night.

 Seeing that cockroach, the first cockroach I’ve seen in a while (because, despite poor hygiene, the washrooms at University have a rather small, young population of roaches, so you see them infrequently) took me back to that place all over again. Largely because it had entered the place I slept, my room. All I could think about for those few minutes was this little thing deciding to co-exist in the same space as I, and rage soared through my blood.

Looking back now, all of this is rather foolish, and I do feel a sense of guilt for killing the insect. I wish I had the prudence and patience to trap it and let it out of my home.

I will wake up tomorrow more humane, more peaceful.

That is my metamorphosis.

Janta Curfew

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In essence, the Government requested us, very kindly, to stay at home for the day. That wasn’t new, given that most people were at home anyway. Aside from that was the instruction to ensure that you give support staff the day off as well (so they can stay at home too), and then the request to applaud healthcare workers and staff at 5pm.

This novel coronavirus situation is the first time I’ve seen a pandemic of this kind. I was relatively younger when the SARS and Swine Flu outbreaks occurred, and was not directly impacted by Ebola because it was so concentrated. This is the first time I think we’ve felt the brunt of something that could directly affect all of us, and I think it’s why we’re all collectively trying to stay as informed as possible about everything taking place. Information breeds a sense of security, and a sense of power over the unpredictable. It carries with it a sense of safety as well: that having the information we have, and staying as informed as possible will help us take better individual and collective decisions that will lead to the most positive outcome: containment and reduction in the spread of this virus across the globe.

I’m no different. I’m sitting at home reading as much as I can about this, particularly on the regulatory side. Looking at the responses States have been taking – individually and collectively has been fascinating. Some States have clearly placed people at the forefront of all their considerations in their decision-making, while others place things ancillary to people themselves – things that rely on human labour (like economies) at the forefront. India’s response so far was puzzling – and it continues to be puzzling to me for several reasons. It feels like everyone’s taking it one day at a time, and I feel like a more thorough analysis is only possible in hindsight.

However, today, following the Prime Minister’s address a couple of days back, was the first time we heard the Center issue this kind of public clarion call for individual action. I have my reservations about this whole one-day curfew business, given the weight of scientific evidence suggesting the need for a longer curfew – and I have my reservations about why financial stimuli and aid to the largest extent possible has not been granted to State Governments, aside from other policy reservations as well. What this entire exercise told me about though, was the cult of personality that the Prime Minister is able to ride on at present.

We may be critical of several things, but it felt like hearing the Prime Minister’s message and phrasing brought some peace to individuals who were panicking, and led to some unity in voice and collective direction to stay at home – forcing smarter decision making by some people who continued to go out at all times. Aside from that, I saw a lot of videos of applause, and people genuinely took to it. If I was applauded, I know I would’ve been motivated to continue putting in the effort into anything I was being applauded for, so I understood how this would impact the psyche of most medical professionals.

I don’t support the ruling party – I ought to make that clear. There are multiple reasons for that. What I do hope for though, is that decisive action is taken over the next few days. It is clear that the Prime Minister enjoys the support of a majority portion of our nation – people will trust what he says, so I’m curious to see what his next words are – and what is called for.

In that hope, however, I remember that there is a lot that the Prime Minister has not thrown his words behind, and remain cautious about the things to come.

Amorphous (Time)

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This period of isolation is not excellent, but necessary. One of the consequences I’ve observed is that I wake up feeling like the day is only a continuation of the previous day – that it isn’t fresh or new, and that the 8 hours I’ve slept has passed by as if it’s just been a nap and nothing more. That’s helped me try to build a routine because I’m terrified that I won’t realize how much time is going by just like this, and I remind myself each morning when I bathe that I’m stepping into a fresh day, which will bring a new set of challenges with it, things I’ll have to tackle on my own.

I think yesterday and today showed me that I could definitely have some variation in my life despite the times. Yesterday, right on cue, because it rained, this city was beautiful. I spent a large part of the evening thinking about how long it had been since I had seen a summer rain here – and it’s definitely been more than 5 years, because I’ve not been here in March since 2015. For sure. The rain is not something I enjoy at all, but it brings back memories of what my days used to be like as a child studying for boards or pre-boards when these sudden rains hit us – and I love that feeling, because I’m sitting in the same chair, with a similar orientation, just studying different things now. Some things don’t change though, and right on cue, just as the rain began, my terrace clogged up – which meant stepping out and cleaning that in the rain, which is always enjoyable. I actually didn’t mind that so much – but it definitely drove home the fact that I would remember 20 March 2020 as yet another day that I cleaned my terrace.

Today, though, I fought off ants. Which is not an amusing story and is still something I’m disgruntled by, so I shall save it for another time.

Leisure Time

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I’ve spent a large portion of the past three months revelling in the glory of having fewer classes to attend than a majority of my University’s population, and fewer responsibilities than I previously held. All of that meant a large amount of free time pretty much after 12 each day. My winter was spent figuring out how I’d spend all this free time, and for the most part, I’ve been able to stick to doing whatever I had aimed to do with all this extra time I had been granted – a large goal of which was to chill a little by focusing on my other hobbies.

Coming back home and not having online classes to attend has essentially stripped me of three hours of moving around physically that I would ordinarily have partaken in. And thus, I am left with these swathes of free time. My day is essentially my canvas, and I appear to be left in the sweet position of being the artist. My conundrum is that I’m rather poor with paints – they make me feel very fidgety and if given a chance, I would throw paint across my canvas, the entire thing, and call the outcome art. Which naturally means that the extra time bothered me slightly.

I’m ever so grateful however that I’m in a position where I need to figure out meals, so cooking is occupying some of that free time. The other thing I’m extremely thankful for is that I rediscovered the reading bug a couple of years ago. That, coupled with YouTube, and some FIFA and piano – and everything else thrown into the picture has seen the day go by in a jiffy, and I have reached the end feeling rather tired and ready to be tucked into bed.

Tomorrow, I will do more household chores – and fill all this leisure time with everything I have put off for years together (and conveniently blamed Law School for).

Gated

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The onslaught of COVID-19 has seen us evacuate the University premises and find safe havens elsewhere. After considering some options, as I had to, I have returned to my childhood home. Today’s my first full day back, and with my new routine and the task of managing household affairs, I feel like a regular neighbourhood Uncle. Minus the job to go to, I can, in my present state imagine a life like this.

Wake up early, go for a run, meditate, bathe, read the newspaper, eat breakfast, do some work, cook & eat lunch, get household chores completed, get to more work, cook & eat dinner, spend time reading, and sleep.

And repeat.

Today, on my run, all I could think about was how much I feel like I’ve taken the gated community I live in for granted. Growing up at least. I loved living here. Never complained about it or anything, but it feels like I took the amenities and facilities I was provided, and the comfort that I lived in for a ride. My friends visited me in my compound in May 2019, and a distinct thought they all relayed to me was that I lived in a resort of some kind. I’ve always maintained that the locality I live in is distinct and atypical of the rest of the city. You would be forgiven for forgetting you were in this city. It smells different. The people are different, the roads are different. The rules are different here. Within the gated community I stay in, things take on an even more absurd shape and colour. Squabbles are more petty than anywhere else I’ve ever seen in my life, and egos run high within a small community trying to get by.

It’s essentially a microcosm of any society, so to speak. I guess it just takes on a different sheen in this part of town.

However, the other part the run showed me was the protection this gated community offered. It was my safe place. It always had been. I had come back here on terrible days at school and let those terrible days subside. I had allowed good days to get better. I had used the community as a crutch on innumerable occasions, especially over the past five years at University.

Now with this COVID-19, this gated community offers no unessential human interaction, but a supply of groceries whenever you need it.

It’s the perfect isolation zone.

Think Week

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As you may have noticed if you follow the blog, there were no posts for the past week. This isn’t because I ran out of things to share. Quite the opposite, given that the last week saw several happenings in my life. I decided not to write for a week to take some time to think, to read & relax, and put all these thoughts I was having about several things into some form. I’m waiting for some decisions that affect how I spend the better part of my 2020-21, which was causing me to build up several nerves, and I didn’t really feel like pouring my energy into writing in the time period. Given that writing is a part of every single evening, not having to type up blog posts or share everything going through my head was a big break from routine, a break that had a spillover effect on other parts of my routine too. That’s allowed me to reflect and shake up a couple of things I was displeased with, and prioritize things I was comfortable with and would like to focus more time on – things I’m very grateful for.

This think week felt a lot like a quarterly review, essentially.

Things around me are changing fairly rapidly, what with COVID-19 and coronavirus requiring everyone’s attention and concern, and a slew of misinformation that needs to be waded through to figure out how best to be safe. Classes have been suspended for two weeks, and it looks likely that our living quarters and mess facilities will also be shutting down soon. I’m likely to figure out things one day at a time. Since this is our last semester, several decisions being made are being questioned by me on the basis of emotion alone, but I’ve got to keep logic front and center here. It’s pretty worrying how unprepared we are as a global community for something of this scale.

Field Day

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I had a field day today – quite literally a day out in the field, meeting people I had to meet. It started this afternoon, when I took a trip to WIMWI. I have fond memories of WIMWI from the month and a half I spent working on a project there. Going there post-class hours and sitting in the library to get things done gave me tremendous joy. Meeting my faculty at WIMWI and figuring out a research plan has got me incredibly excited about the possibilities that collaborating over the next few months will bring. All I’m hopeful for from this period is that I can repay the faith and trust that somebody has shown in me by putting in the work I’m expected to. Actually, I’m more hopeful that I’m able to learn something new about researching a particular subject in this time period. I think if I stick to my work and keep learning how to improve, it’ll match the faculty’s expectations and lead to a considerably reasonable outcome in any case.

After that, I scheduled another meet-up to pick up more work, which I did – always a fulfilling thing.

Then it was time for a delightful catch-up with a senior I have become friends with only after his graduation. Although I knew him from his time at University, I don’t think I anticipated how warm and friendly he would be – and how much I would regard him as a friend of mine in the years to come. As we discovered today, there is a large overlap in our areas of interest and the kinds of things we do in our free-time so I’m eager to see what I can indulge in with good company before I leave this city.

There are only about 6 weeks left now, if I look at my calendar a little more closely. That doesn’t feel like too much time. Summer will hit us all soon and I am fairly certain this means time will feel like it is stretching out, but perhaps it provides us with the perfect opportunity to begin planning the things I want to tick-off my bucket list.

A morning run on the Sabarmati Riverfront is one of them.

A meal at Sam’s Pizza is another.

Holi-Days

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Holi is usually a very vibrant time on campus. Especially when it occurs midweek. The only thing I look forward to, since I’m a little averse to how much Holi one can play, is the thandai they prepare in the mess for us each year. I’m looking forward to that this year as well. However, University declared the Monday before Holi (tomorrow) a holiday. That has meant a 4-day long weekend, and most people have taken advantage of this to take trips and go places – or to go home and visit their families. I wasn’t too interested in travel, given my music exam and my general lazy desire to spend time on campus as much as possible – to enjoy all of it before we graduate. Campus is incredibly dead though, and it reminds me of some of the nicest time I spent here, back in December 2017.

The quiet and long weekend also offers the opportunity to use time however you wish. I spent my entire day reading The Chronicles of Narnia, aside from doing the work that I needed to get done and ticking off things on my OneNote to-do list. [I love OneNote and it has dramatically changed my life, but more about that later]

Narnia was a world I was not introduced to when the movie came out in 2005. I was deemed too young to be exposed to that genre of film, and ended up watching the movie to prepare for my watching of Prince Caspian. Prince Caspian released the day my Grade 5 final exams ended in 2008, the same year we relocated from Dubai to Bangalore. To celebrate, my mother allowed me to invite all my friends to my house [we broke the curtain rod, which disappointed me] and took all of us out to Al-Ghurair Mall to watch Prince Caspian in the evening. We were understandably an excited bunch of 10-12 year olds. My mother and my uncle knew nothing about Prince Caspian, and I remember them cluelessly looking to us to try to understand our joy at the return to Narnia and all of the adventures the Royals went on through the entire show. My mom also did this incredible thing [I really do not know when], where she made us take a photograph outside the Prince Caspian poster and made us all individual mugs with the photo on it.

My memory of Narnia is just that. That amazing day, filled with wonder. I didn’t watch the third movie. Today, Goodreads prompted me that The Chronicles were the most-read in the Fantasy genre this week, which was more than enough excuse to launch into myself.

What a fabulous day it has been. I’ve been sitting on my laptop, in my room, yet transported with each book into a new adventure. Launched into a world other than my own. Narnia fulfilled everything that good fiction books have done for me. They’ve all allowed me to live a life that’s removed from the life I live here. Another planet, almost, where anything appears possible, and chapter on chapter, the unimaginable takes place.

Love that fifth year is giving me so much time and reason to read.

The Theory of Music: A Personal Arc

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When things go south, I find solace in work. I do always think about things – I think long and hard, and I think things through. I’m a compulsive overthinker. It is my hamartia, I’m aware of that. Work consoles me. It gives me the opportunity to shut my brain away from the thinking when it’s counterproductive. It allows me to shut out the outside world and concentrate wholly on efforts that are entirely within my sphere of control to try to achieve ends I’m searching for. It gives me space to think about other things for some time before I go back to thinking about everything else. When things weren’t going well for me because of my actions at the end of 2019, I went home and after some time, decided to try to find things to put my mind to.

My history with music is documented too much on this blog. Quick recap: went to lessons, dropped out of lessons, posted stuff on Soundcloud, stopped playing for a while, resumed lessons now.

When I started studying music, my teacher made me study music theory – to prepare me for exams from the board that I was learning from at the time. I didn’t enjoy it. Especially Grade 1. I sort of knew most of it, so it never felt like I was learning anything new at all. At that age, I struggled to see how the knowledge contributed to my ability to understand music or my playing in any manner. There was also a large amount of homework to do each week, which didn’t materially help my levels of satisfaction. Grade 2 was a little better but we stopped midway through because my practical examinations needed a lot more in terms of my time and attention given that I was skipping Grades. Getting older has given me some maturity in terms of appreciating holistic knowledge. I enjoy knowing things to the most complete point I am capable of, and searching for gaps in my knowledge to plug them in with information. It feels like continuous improvement that I can materially see, and it gives me an enormous amount of satisfaction.

So when, in winter, I resolved to relearn my piano playing, I decided not to half-ass it this time. I committed to going to lessons properly. I wanted to learn how to read music again, because it’s a skill that’s equally as fascinating as being able to understand how to play music by ear. I also have come to realize that music, and most pieces of education aren’t things you can separate from each other. As you study portions of things, you sort of build overlapping competencies that help you along the way. I’ll explain and illustrate with two examples.

  1. The Musical Example: Learning scales and playing scales repeatedly. While useful in their own right, and a component of most examinations, playing scales repeatedly and perfecting them can get boring. Then you leave lessons and you’re trying to figure out pieces by ear – as you hear them. It’s easier to identify your keys and the key the song is in because you know what the scales sound like, note to note, and what notes are in the scale and out of the scale. It’s easier to identify progressions because you understand the tone and pitch any given key produces. If you didn’t play scales, I doubt you’d figure that out as easily.
  2. The Non-Musical Example: Studying the multiplication of fractions is extremely frustrating because it is difficult to see any practical use to when you will have to multiply fractions in your life. It is reasonable that you will come across some circumstance where you multiply fractions with whole numbers (here are three halves of a cake, how many whole cakes can we make?, for example), but fractions being multiplied against each other seems slightly less realistic. It’s, however, close to impossible to engage with calculus without being good with this skill. I learned this the hard way in Grade 11 and was reminded of one very bad evening in Grade 7 where my father and mother berated me for not knowing how to multiply fractions the day before my Math exam (after studying it for the whole year), and then taught the skill to me painfully well.

There are several other examples which prove this. For me, given the purpose with which I was starting (restarting) the piano studies, it felt difficult to ignore the theory aspects. I couldn’t put myself through lessons and I really wanted a challenge, so in December, I decided to self-study for the Music Theory Grade 5 examination. This was quite a stretch, given that I had only ever looked at the material for Grade 1 and 2 before. However, given that I was older, and that I had the time, and the fact that Grade 5, at least with the ABRSM is a precondition to attempting the higher Grades of any practical examinations, I was really motivated to give this a good shot.

If anyone’s attempting this, please visit this reddit link which is a question I asked about self-studying through to Grade 5 and some community answers which helped me prioritize my studying. Here’s the reddit link.

Over the past 2 months, I’ve been studying for a solid two hours each day, apart from lean patches and weekends I’ve taken off, and it’s been the most fulfilling journey imaginable. Last evening though, I got really scared. The exam was this morning and my usual fear of failing an examination came through in all its force. Of course, I turned to my dad. My dad reminded me I had done all of this for hobby purposes. He also wisely informed me there was no consequence to failing this exam. Truly, nothing. The exam and achieving the Grade would be a great affirmation of the studying I had done, but nothing prohibited a retake, and nothing took away from the kind of knowledge I gained – which was why I started this entire journey in the first place. I wanted to understand my classical music better, I wanted to know what went behind what composers think through and why some things sound better than others. That took the load off.

This morning, I basically told myself I just wanted to enjoy the exam. I walked out two hours later having had the happiest two hours I’ve had in a while, because I could figure out the questions. I understood the language they were written in, and the phrases they used – which meant that my studying had served its purpose. I read through some music and read through some more and imagined what it sounded like, which checked another box in my head. Of course, I answered 7 music theory questions, which was incredibly satisfying and fulfilling in its own right.

I don’t know if I’ll pass or not. I haven’t thought about it. There is a chance I will fail. I’m not worried. For the first time in my life, I’m actually not mortified at the thought of failing this exam. I’ll be disappointed if I fail, yes, but I’m not looking at this in terms of life and death, which is often how I’ve viewed exams.

This evening, after finishing up my work for the day, I started figuring out how to study for Grade 6, Grade 7 and Grade 8. I’ll work my way up through the material, and one day, give that Grade 8 exam. I’m looking forward to learning new things in music theory that felt intuitive but I couldn’t place my finger on (apparently that’s what the higher Grades are like).

I’m also considering working through the material from other boards – just to get a better-rounded view of this music theory business. It excites me. I’m very pleased that I took the decision to study all of this in December. It’s brought me closer to an art I knew I lost when I stopped my lessons – and it’s made me feel an incredible sense of attachment to a subject I felt (and feel) a large sense of imposter syndrome about.

Someone I knew once told me I was a passionfruit because I got incredibly passionate about the projects I took up. This feels like an adequate representation of that.

Topsy-Turvy Day

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Today’s been a very topsy-turvy day. It’s been filled with some great highs, and some lows – so I’m ending the day feeling very “meh”. Has today been a good day? In parts, yes. Could it have been better? Yes, for sure. Am I still grateful for today? Most certainly.

I had an excellent start to my day. Woke up early this morning, got a run in and everything. Had a slow, leisurely breakfast. Was early to class. Stayed awake and read a bit of a book. Chilled in the afternoon, gave my synopsis presentation.

Then got confirmation of some news I had an inkling about in the evening. And another confirmation of some news I did not anticipate. That left me second-guessing how lovely the first half of the day had been. I wasn’t too hit by the news I sort of prepared myself for, but the second bit of news definitely knocked some of my good juju out the window.

I’ve struggled with expectations all my life, very recently too – which led to a lot of self-inflicted harm and a lot of introspection. I’m trying and genuinely working on cutting out expectations from several factors out of my control, but it’s a difficult process – and sticking with it sometimes feels like I have to let go of the optimistic side of me I so cherish and love.

Maybe it’s about striking a balance. That cautious optimism – the one that doesn’t place expectations but is always hopeful. I’m not sure. I’ll let that thought marinate. I meant to write “I’ll ruminate” but now I’m thinking about a good falafel sandwich. Yum. Man. Associative memories really suck.

Amidst all of this, the biggest highlight of my day was speaking to my dad on video call for 40 minutes, split into two halves. One in the afternoon, and once at night. I don’t think I’ll remember all these feelings the newses induced in me. What I will always remember is that I spoke to my dad today, for a long time. And we chatted. I’m so grateful for that.

[Summer] Rain

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It rained this evening. Out of absolutely nowhere. Atleast to me. I don’t check weather forecasts very often – because after living here for 4 years, it’s pretty much a standard weather cycle we go through, and there’s a clear expectation of what any given day may look like, given the circumstances.

The rain lasted all of 45 minutes, but it definitely created some chaos on campus. I saw one person’s room flood – which is standard for the monsoon semester, but not so much this semester. Everyone hunted around for their umbrellas. People conversed quickly, and made decisions about sprinting they’d regret in a few minutes. People showering scurried through the boys hostel hoping that a slanted sheet of rain would not touch their clean bodies.

It brought with it the smell of rain too.

I dislike the rain, but when it comes at the start of the hottest two months I experience every single year [despite my love for the sun], it’s pretty comforting that it has arrived.