Growing up in a city characterized by one of the worst weather conditions, primarily due to the extreme cases of humidity and the scorching heat, I have always admired rain. Well, theoretically, rain is important to us because it gets the city a ton of relief amid a horrible summer but for some of us, rain plays a much more significant role.
Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver had said with certainty that “Someday a rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets”. For him, the rain was a symbol of hope, a fragment of his vindictive imagination. Similarly, to a lot of us, the rain is nothing but a sign, a sign that something is going to change and an indication to start afresh, leaving behind all the trauma and grief in this new journey. Rain is often associated with defining a turning point in our lives and we get an essence of that when Andy Dufresne finally frees himself from prison and gets rid of all his agony amid a heavy rain in the movie Shawshank Redemption. In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude,’ the town of Macondo is cleansed of all its sin and sorrow by a massive rainstorm eventually rejuvenating the entire town. Even in Guns N’ Roses famous ‘November Rain”, the singer sings in a tone of hope despite singing about heartbreak. Through his powerful vocals, Axl Rose that love can overcome the hardest challenges and obstacles even in the midst of the November Rain.
Rain has almost always been valued as an event of extraordinary significance and the concept of rain as a symbol of hope resonates across different cultures. In the ancient Egyptian civilization, the rain was celebrated with several rituals as they considered it as a gift from God Osiris himself and when the Nile overflowed, it supposedly cleansed the civilization from all sins and curses. Perhaps that might have been one of the reasons why this civilization prospered so much during its time. Growing up in a country driven mainly by agriculture, I have always been informed about the importance of rain, and thus to me, the rain will always serve as a reminder that even amid the drought, the rain will eventually come and extinguish the evil from the world.
Philosopher Carl Jung has defined water as a universal symbol of unconsciousness and thus the transition from the unconscious to the conscious state is also technically defined by the rain according to Jung’s theory. Rain has always been associated with rebirth and rejuvenation and thus according to Jung, the human psyche tends to interpret the rain as a signal for individuation. According to him, the rain represents fluidity which is necessary for the human psyche to reconcile the opposite poles of thought and maintain a balance between consciousness and unconsciousness; between good and evil; and between light and dark.
In a world suffering at the mercy of the accreting climate change, rain has also become one of mankind’s only resorts for survival. Temperatures across the world are rising at a significant rate every single day and as I mentioned in the beginning, the rain has become our only hope for relief. While for some of us, it might be nothing more than a means of respite, for the ones who depend on agriculture, the rain serves as their only means of survival.
Travis Bickle had always expected the rain but in the end, he never got to see the rain with his own eyes as he died in his imagination. For him, his hope was never fulfilled and the same applies to almost all of us. None of us live long enough to see the rain with our own eyes and the hope that the rain will eventually wash away everything dies with us. When Creedence Clearwater Revival asked us if we had ever seen the rain, we couldn’t agree that we had.
But is rain always associated with hope? For some of us, rain is just a tool to conceal our agony from the rest of the world. The rain allows us to camouflage our tears and thus when we cry in the rain, our pain is not visible to the rest of the world. I have always seen the monsoon as a gloomy period of the year. It undoubtedly does provide a different level of comfort but at the same time, it always instilled a need to reflect on the past.
If you were asked to describe how you would ideally like to spend your time on a rainy day, a majority of us would have agreed that we would like to grab a cup of warm coffee and stare aimlessly at the rain and admire its beauty. But the question that arises is: Why do we so fondly stare at the rain, the dark clouds, and the gloomy ambiance? The rain puts me in a different state of mind, a state in which I am surrounded by regrets and thoughts; regrets of my actions in the past, and thoughts of what lies in store for me in the future. For me, the rain is special especially when the rain isn’t surrounded by thunder and lightning. Contrary to sunshine, which is seen as a sense of optimism, the grayness of the cloudy weather resonates perfectly with human feelings of grief and agony. The melancholy melody of rain strikes a perfect chord for us to reflect on the past. When we look out of the window, staring at the rain, we find ourselves in contrast with our inner emotions and our outer reflection, and somehow amid these calm periodic splashes of water, we seek to find an explanation behind the many sorrows of life.
When the rain makes us secluded from the rest of the world, it simultaneously urges us to come closer to human beings and it is this very urge for intimacy that makes the rain the perfect setting for romance. Since our childhood, we have witnessed lovers unite under the rain, seeking a shared desire for comfort under the splashing raindrops in popular literature. Every single drop of rain can reflect a different feeling and it is the cluster of such feelings which facilitates an emotional intimacy between two individuals. For new lovers, the rain might be the best atmosphere to start off and at the same time for a despondent heartbroken individual, the rain is the best place to seek comfort.
The rain symbolizes a perfect balance which is required for our sustenance; the slow drizzles of rain are enjoyed by everyone but just a little more turbulence causes destruction and dampens everything around us. The Beatles summarized this perfectly in their song “Rain” when they said - “If the rain comes they will run off into the gutter as fast as they can” thereby advising us to accept the happenings in life the way it is and not overthink anything.
It is funny how the rain serves so many purposes in our small world. It rejuvenates life and is essential for sustaining life but at the same time, it is responsible for washing away the past, no matter how beautiful it might once have been. The rain is a seasonal reminder that nothing in this world is permanent and as human beings, we can just enjoy the moments temporarily before it slowly dissolves into somber memories. The rain is a reminder that everything in this world is transient and thus every moment in our lives should be cherished because once it’s gone, the rain will wash it away forever.