The sky suddenly crashed on me. With the sound and the sting of a thousand shattered glasses, the sky pounced on me. The clouds, had finally decided to deglaze. All the while I was writing my test, the grey outside the window, was swelling with an inviting wrath, like a charged latina ballerina, heaving her bosom before a dance. I was impatient to get out. I knew it’d never really get out of all this, but I wanted to get out. I knew, I wouldn’t come out alive of all this. All this song heaving inside, camouflaged by a steady frown and inhospitable looks. The corridors are all carpeted with an absent storm. Winds are hanging low on the leaves. The leaves are hanging low on hopes. Hopes, are well, buried, deep inside this vacant storm.

I come out. The university behind me. A golden brown, towering name, it seems so small from this opposite side. I am shuffling with my bag. I am trying to flaunt it in form. I look pregnant. If I do, then I’d probably be expecting Godard,Barthes and Yimou.

And then, it happens.

The sky spills out. Angels are angry at their bar, and they crash glasses on my head. It comes down, like short spears, and bruises me with wetness, before I can even extract my umbrella from my womb. A curtain erupts all around me. I am suddenly cocooned in rain. I see hazes and blurring outlines of people, as they dart by. Some gather next to me. We are all waiting for things to take us back, where we came from. Not a single cab is person less.

Everyone is suddenly privileged enough.

As I am ruing over my fate, and the rain, and my jeans getting wet, and water spoiling my face and hair, and my wrists getting jammy, and my ankles getting clayed, I feel someone beside me. He also rushed out of the university. Has also been hit by the sudden rain-attack, but unlike me, he doesn’t have armour. He is getting drenched to the bone, but I wonder why he doesn’t retreat to the sheltered pavement behind us. I am not sure, what is he waiting for? As I entreat an arriving cab, my eyes rest on him for a moment. I realize he has been looking at me, all this while. He does not look away. He has a certain question lurking in his eyes. I look away. He is disappointed. The rain is getting thicker. My umbrella is big enough for binaries. But then, there is a sheltered pavement too, behind us.

A girl, appears next to me. We look at each other. She smiles, embarrassed, wet and dripping. I offer her place under my umbrella. Soon an empty cab arrives. I depart leaving two people behind me, getting wet, in the rain.

But it is him I feel strange about.Why did I hesitate? I could have easily offered him my umbrella too. He was beseeching me. Why did he not take shelter? Why did he look disappointed? Why can’t someone be kind to someone of an opposite sex without the risk of undertones? Why can’t somethings just be, without allegories of confusion?. I couldn’t share my shelter with him. And we talk of sharing countries? Of lives? I should have been randomnly kind enough to help him. He should have been courageous enough to ask me. He watched me go by. He wasn’t angry. He was sad that I left. He was…I do not know…how did he know, I wouldn’t.

It was raining.
I was under shade...
but we both got wet.