When it rains, it pours. Especially so if you are in the Western Ghats during the monsoon season. The rain brings alive many emotions.

I nurse a hot coffee—dark brown with a sting that somehow never fails to awaken my senses and keep me attentive to everything around me: the falling rain, passing clouds, and winds that seem eager to howl but end up whimpering as the rain pelts down.

Arundhati Roy once said, “The rain was beautiful to watch. The way it slanted across the road, forming fine curtains through which everything looked different.” Some writers and their words latch onto seasons. For me, the monsoon season calls for Arundhati Roy. Roy equals the monsoons.

Blinding sheets slip into to faltering drips and then offer a mirage-like pause, only to be followed by blinding sheets again. Meanwhile, my coffee is disappearing from my cup.

Bob Marley said something to the effect that some people feel the rain while others just get wet. I can’t stay in either camp for long. Sometimes, I want to soak it all in. Other times, I’m happy just to watch.

You see, life is never black and white. It’s a whole lot of grey. The rain reminds me of that. It’s never just this or that.

A whole lot of black and white is just grey masquerading as one of them. That thought gives me comfort. It helps me lay the quest to find and settle into one of those black or white territories to rest and find a small space on the margins.

Margins.

The rain pelts there as well. Perhaps it’s not about the margins, as much as it’s about the rain. “There is no place more comforting than being in the embrace of a rain-washed landscape,” said Kamala Das. And I couldn’t agree more.

It’s all grey. And it’s nice.