a brief history of downpour by Srishti Chatterjee

a brief history of downpour

Words by Srishti Chatterjee / Illustration by Dana Jepsen

for my grandmother, and for Jack – you two should have met, but it is truly beautiful that the only way you get to meet is through every poem I write.

robert, my thesis supervisor, says that i should believe in myself more. 4 drafts of thesis proposals make their way onto his email on a rainy monday morning — meticulously cited writings/musings about revolutions, unions, and more. i always remember to include an apology in the email– for the quality of words, the unhinged 4am email, or for the deadline delay.

i have inherited my grandmother’s penchant for apology, hidden in the cruel conceit of knowing that despite not necessarily having much to apologise for, a life can be an apology. i’m sorry i am here and she is not. i’m sorry i didn’t talk to her more, call her once more about my day, feed her a little more mashed rice when her body gave up– i tell myself these things and more, futile musings of survivor’s guilt that have become necessary parts of survival.

i cannot be a survivor without guilt.

my grandmother didn’t like the creek behind her house. my grandfather did– it reminded him of the childhood home he had to fl ee. this is probably why grandmum didn’t like it– who likes to be reminded of a home their husband has left behind?

i am a child of the river. i grew up in a refugee colony-turned-neighbourhood in the southside of calcutta, where a dark, shallow, smelly creek slithered down behind houses and under bridges as a lost and dead tributary of the mighty, divine, sustaining river ganga. my grandfather and his family – our family – fl ed genocide through these creeks that fl ew into rivers with mirthful decadence, then a lot more fl owing, sustaining, and now, collecting the grim debris of the city– dead.

i am a child of the river. when i was born, the river near our family home fl ooded with the heavenly grace of myth. my parents, non-believers, named their fl ood-born child ‘srishti’ – sanskrit for ‘divine creation’. on my birthday, at the beginning of this millenia of disruption where we come digitally pre-defeated, the river sloshed away, receiving the angry, torrential, heavenly downpour, and spreading through the unkempt roads and potholes of my poor hometown.

III.

my partner is a believer. they grew up near the sea. fl ood-born, river-fl ed, river-fed — I found my way to them like the river fi nds the sea — making its way through life, exodus, famine and death, slowly, and then all at once. the river, in the delta a few miles away from my hometown, meanders through a mangrove forest where life stands still. the river, in the delta before the sea, gives up for a little while, before it falls head over heels into the sea, a little bit like love, but with none of its chances. the river is meant to fi nd the sea as foredestined as the emancipation of people – purposeful, meant to be.

fl oods, in myths, are about chances. where I grew up, the rain is messy, muddy in a way that claws onto your skin, like swimming in honey. fl oods ravage hometowns that were built in postcolonial grappling at survival while the world mourns the monarchs in cities where rain falls pretty and summer is beautiful. civilisation is almost taunted by rain – half the world begs for it. the other half watches their homes wash away and washes away with them.

there is no rain without guilt.

V.

my grandmother hated storms. they scared her, deeply. when my grandfather was away on army duty, my grandmother and mother were reluctant victims of warmongers, holding each other through storms that blew off the roof of their house every monsoon. when I was growing up, grandmum used to call us during the storms until her phone died. the cell towers would fall, and electricity would fail, and we’d ask her to not call us. “conserve your phone battery” – we told her – “what will you do if you need to call for help?”

she did call for help. in the eye of the storm, grandmum would call us, because preserving her family was more important to her than preserving the lifely battery of a lifeless phone. the night she died; it poured like the sky cried on my behalf because I had an assignment to fi nish. my father and I ran to the train station in the pouring rain, holding hands in a way we had never held each other. acceptance, the fi rst stage of grief, came to us because our phones weren’t ringing in the storm. the rest of the stages washed away in the rain, coming back to haunt us in fl oods. rain has guilt has love has my family’s stories. rain has bled me, fed me, raised me.

now i fall into the sea.