It is all relative

It has been a sunless summer so far in Cologne. July is almost over and it feels like we have moved from early Spring to a wet Autumn in one straight swift move. I look for the weather prediction of the day every morning with more optimism than the previous day – the optimism stems from the (self) reinforced belief, ‘there must be light at end of the tunnel’. As I write this blog, it looks like the end of this tunnel is really far away :-) and daylight is really nowhere in sight.

My friends in this city are coping with the incessant aqua deluge in Cologne in their own different ways. Some have fled to (bright and sunny) corners of the world leaving the rain Gods to water their plants and lawn. Some others have bought package deals at Suntan parlors to compensate for the tan that sun would have given them for free. And some others, the really innovative ones I would say, have invested in full spectrum light bulbs in their homes and work spaces to stay warm and toasty.

In Chennai, the south Indian coastal city where I grew up, summer rain was welcome. It was a brief (although humid) relief from the blazing sun that seemed to always work overtime in this city. The rain threw a spoke in our never ending street side cricket matches. But we didn’t complain. We scurried indoors, drank hot chocolate, watched TV, read our pick of books from the library and kept an eye out of the window for the summer rainbow. The rain was a breather. It gave relief from the heat and increased the water levels in the dams.  It was a sign from above that after every dry, hot and grueling period comes, a relief! You will never hear chennaities complain of rain in the summer months. In fact, if we were lucky, our summer would be punctuated with rain showers.

And now I see, that 'relief' is relative. What is relief, depends on what you have more of and in that light, your wish for what you don’t have. The same rain, in different parts of the world, in the same season is welcomed differently. It’s a boon in one place and a bane in the other. And to think, that this summer has been rainfall punctuated with brief periods of sunshine and that I go jogging with water proof and windbreaker jackets in summer …

isn’t it ironic?  - Given where I come from.

I wish you all a good holiday season and hope that wherever you go, you do find your spot of sunshine :-)