Rainy Ride

How often, while stuck in a busy city road with rain lashing down hard, has a wish escaped the trapped body – a wish that you are on a highway – free, open, greenery around, dark skies with the car tires making a squeezy sound as they pass on the wet roads on a high speed.
To live that wish, I realised is an exhilarating experience.
The state of Punjab ensured the greenery all around, the monsoon season ensured the lovely weather and the government ensured a good straight highway. Good, though, I must say is a relative thing. There were the usual slow moving trucks on the extreme right, fast moving vehicles snaking through, some daredevil on a bike braving the rain right in the middle of highway or an unsure slow moving car moving right and suddenly moving towards left when you try to overtake it from the wrong side. But all this is quite OK and in India, it feels strange if the mind does not pop up with “What the hell??” Morever, compared to city traffic, it was heaven.
Dark clouds had started racing me as I started the journey from the small town Mandi Gobindgarh, also known as the steel city. I accepted the challenge and with Coldplay giving me company, stretched the car exploring its limits – 130 kmph was the max that it could go. But challenging the nature is obviously not a good thing and soon the pitter patter was heard on the roof. Though it was sunny, but the wipers were sweeping the windshield. When we were kids, we used to attribute this rare rain and sun combination to “Geedar and Geedari”(Jackals) getting married. Soon the sun was out and the dark clouds, though heavy with the water overtook the speeding car. I was happy to lose the race. The green of earth meeting the blue of sky is an amazing sight. But may be the black of sky meeting the green of earth exceeds in awesomeness. May be it has that cocktail of a sense of laziness, pinch of romance, a hint of solitude and a tendency to go in the past.

Soon the laden clouds had dumped off their weight. Some of them turned white, other simply vanished leaving behind a beautiful rainbow with its arc directly on top of the highway.