It was Deepavali season and the carefully-chosen crackers were waiting to be sun dried. But, it had been raining since morning and I was bored stiff, cooped up at home, yearningly looking at my damp crackers. I was five or six, and excitement for me meant running outdoors, climbing trees and getting my feet muddy. But, all I could do was watch the rain pound the earth, creating puddles that grew bigger and bigger till the water reached our doorsteps.
That was when my grandfather crafted my first paper boat from a magazine cover. After that, the hours flew as we launched boat after boat into the red water. Amma joined us in the evening and all was well with the world.
The very next year, I got together with my gang in the quarters where we lived and we made boats with the help of grown-ups. We’d figured out which paper worked best — paper with a lining of plastic. It sailed as far as the eye could track it, and then some more. The others wobbled after a while, and sank as they got soaked. My friends and I sailed paper boats well into our teens.
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I told my son about my childhood paper boats and even made some for him when he was a toddler. And then, the rains stopped. At least the kind of rains we were used to in Coimbatore as children. A thunder-and-lightning filled downpour that washed leaves and streets clean and saw water rush down streets in rivulets. All we required was an hour of this rain to have enough to start sailing. This year, after ages, something similar happened during Deepavali. It rained for three whole days. Water reached our doorstep. Thick pamphlets were summoned, out came the scissors and we had a row of lovely looking boats all ready to sail. So did our neighbours. And, by evening, Facebook was full of pictures of paper boats bravely holding their own in the swirling waters.
For two whole days, children got their feet muddy and their clothes wet. Their faces wore a big smile, the kind that only a paper boat in the rainy season can bring.