manifesto of the monsoon

#21

1. The silence before the rains must be identified. The rains must be awaited.

2. Every time they arrive, in any way they arrive, the rains must be welcomed

3. The reactions and responses of all living beings, plants and animals, must be carefully observed.

4. During this time, in this temperature, under the influence of the colours of the sky, emotionally dense adventures may be undertaken in great depth, soulful paths may be toiled up on, with the full knowledge and agreement that the wind that follows will carry the weight of the inner torment. A ceaseless, seamless flow of emotions, therefore, must be allowed. It is nothing but analogous to getting the soil ready for the next harvest.

5. Having established the above, it must be expected out of oneself to approach every being and matter of delicacy with one’s edges brimming with playfulness and tenderness; and only one agenda of this approach : to heal. One will go back to sleep that night, in turn, rocked gently in the arms of the Mother, and will therefore, wake up replenished the next day.

6. Countless men and women must be looked into the eyes and had a bursting and passionate love affair with.

7. Sick leaves from one’s workplace must be taken, the sickness being the need to attend to one’s mainstream fantasies surrounding the rains, such as being curled up next to it with a book in one hand and a piping hot mug of one’s choice of beverage or taking long endless walks on wet muddy roads. Any and all attempts to re-create such fancies, however many times, must be considered valid and effortlessly succumbed to.

8. The process of shedding tears must be taken seriously. Must one see the reflection of one’s own actions in the doings of nature? Must one assume the position of a well-versed cloud ? Must one compose and sync the rhythms of one’s own teardrops to the sounds of the raindrops outside? Must one, then, stop crying when it stops pouring? One must only attempt to answer these questions when the tears , like the rains, arrive.

9. One must also be very careful with one’s choice of intoxication. Upon feeling the desire to intoxicate, one must question whether the need to do so arises because of the rains, or regardless of it. In both cases, however, it must be known that intoxication exists independent of its context. That said, red wine must be enjoyed, but simply because it is red wine.

10. One must be careful before assuming the roots of one’s gloominess to be in the colour of the sky. The absence of the sun in the sky associated with a melancholy inside oneself is a result of an exhausted construct. If anything, the richness, the sheer ripeness of life in everything around prompts the unearthing of certain emotions, buried deep into oneself, which do not surface otherwise, under the constant influence of the bright and shiny all-is-ok sun above one’s head
everyday. When dullness arrives, wear it and take it outside. Thank the rains and the air that they make, for their force and power that turn this self into a vessel to hold all of one’s moods, any emotion at all.

11. That said, brief periods of time when the sun does come out, are to be savoured and kept with oneself as a reserve. Fabrics will dry, surfaces will be disinfected, and so will the mind. If the rains provide with the malleability to mould the clay in whichever form pleases, then the sun dries it up. The sun lets it settle. And progress of any kind, is a fruit that emerges out of this churning, a constant tug and flow of moulding and settling.

12. Sleep must be fully consumed to one’s heart’s content. It is a time to feel most secure and taken care of. And sleep only ever arrives when one is at home with those feelings. With the frenzy of a certain grandness and celebration, a mood of party, constantly hovering outside one’s window, tending to the needs of the body sometimes becomes the only ground of reality upon which to anchor oneself. Like a kid, one might always feel the need to stay awake and active, lest one
misses out on the party outside; but just like a kid, one must be put back to sleep.

13. To see the moon as the moon, and nothing else but the moon. To allow the simple act of opening an umbrella, be just that, and one will find oneself responding to their most basic instinct which is to pick it up and go out in the rain, giving it the liberty and freedom to do just what it is designed to do. When one feels the need to abandon the romance to save one’s life, one must do so without any hesitation or a dubious glance at the rains outside. To see the rain as the rain and nothing else but the rain.

14. Pleasure oneself. Pleasure oneself in the wee hours of the morning on the bed right after waking up and one will hear the rain crescendo, the clouds tremble with one’s breath. One can close one’s eyes and feel the drops gently trickle down the ridges of one’s body, one’s back arched in the bed, fully drenched in the sensorial show outside orchestrated solely for the ones who lose their selves to the silent and moist touch of the damp wind rubbing against their skin. Pleasure
oneself in the rains. The Earth being unbearably wet and ripe and fragrant must be nothing else but an honest reflection of one’s own body this morning. One can surely ‘make do’ with the usual, regular tangible lover’s body, but it’s only by the omnipresent, the engulfing intangible, one will be surely, purposefully taken. One must learn to let one’s senses be possessed and ruled, rather than be influenced.

15. If one is looking to not run from the reality anymore, one must, unapologetically, get drenched in the rain. Heavy with the pourings that arrive not from the yesterday or the tomorrow, or even the today, but rather from the now : each drop born in this very moment that drops onto oneself in the same. One will quickly realise there is nowhere else to go but here. All the devices, the raincoats and the umbrellas, designed to preserve oneself, keep oneself intact and undisturbed for the next moment, must be abandoned. One stops running away when one does not have the tools to. When the gift of reality is an entire season, pouring down collecting itself in pools on the roadside, always willing to show one’s own reflection, then there is nothing more liberating than surrendering oneself to this reality, to get soaked in it.

16. Enclosed spaces must be entered and people must be met with from time to time, to fully experience the teachings of the rain slowly seep into one’s daily conversations . The outsides are not only where the rains are happening. It must be remembered that the rains are happening when the rains are happening, regardless of the physical boundaries man has created. They’re happening as much in the solitary confinement of a prison cell, as they are on a tall cliff looking down upon an expanse of rare beaches.

17. The rains must be greeted with the knowledge and acknowledgment that the rains will end. The journey between the arrival and the departure of the rains, must be imagined vividly in one’s head, if not lived. Grand plans must be made, if not fulfilled. This ensures a fostering of respect, for when the rains leave, when it is time to say goodbye. Thinking of goodbyes does not take one away from the
moment one is living in. If anything, it makes one even more aware and present to it. Like how being aware of death makes one feel more alive.

18. And thus let it be known that the descent of the rains can be painful to watch. For all that it has given and taken. And so, when the time comes, one must sit with their back straight at the altar of the monsoon’s departure, mumble their goodbyes and leave.

19. One must only remember the silence that was before leaving.