The Rain in Kuala Lumpur

The rain in Kuala Lumpur insists on branding me with its damp fiery passion. I challenge its wild mischief to a speedy run, afraid of being drenched with the sting of needles and pins. The rain wins.

Think a paradox of damp and fiery.

I haven't had a mountain of rain fall on me in a long time.

Showers are more subdued, polite and gracious in Europe.

But picture instead the temperamental flamenco dancer for a touch of flamboyant colour & art and then you have our Malaysian thunderstorm in its festive abundance.

How loud, soakingly wet and sensual the raindrops and to what degree of a rhythmic imagination; it holds my thoughts to all things romantic and ambitious where the imposssible is made possible, the angst of the sad melted to a tiny tear and the world turned haphazard and watchful for a moment under the cautious shade of bus-stops and cosy verandahs.

The rain in Kuala Lumpur sings different songs as it lashes on my window pane or pours down unexpectedly on fields from the big wide sky eager to release armfuls of black, pregnant balloons.

And a carnival of waterbags gatecrash the city. They burst with party revelry on all sorts.

But then too I suddenly remember the storm in Colombo where early one morning the city looked like it would be swept and torn apart by the rushing winds and from where white ancient dames brokenly shaped by colonial buildings, stamped their feet in fury, refusing to sashay up a raindrop beat. Heritage is formidable, after all.

Such now is the aching sentiment of a traveller.