revelling in paradise

The summer had scorched the land and bleached the leaves to a yellow that would shame the daisies. the sky was still a burning blue that seemed to turn white with incandescence. the breeze was still and the cicadas were singing their passionate song. there was a lull in activity. nothing wished to move or even tremble in anticipation.
But in a few passing moments, the sky grew silent with the pregnant clouds. the hush of rain to come was everywhere. the first baritone of the long-awaited thunder shook the breeze into motion. the sky, briefly illminated with a brilliant spark of lightning, assessed the damage that the summer had done and another rumble came as a sharp reprimand. the breeze grew into a wailing wind that complained and whined against the trees and aggavated the paternal rage of the skies. then, for a moment that felt like a feather suspended in mid-fall, there was silence.
Suddenly, the clouds burst overhead and the leaves and the rain began their soulful duet. the water splashed to the ground in great drops the clang-clanged on the roofs of waiting cars. out on the road, i lifted my face to the skies and took from it a kiss that refreshed me, body and soul.
The monsoon was finally here bringing with it my utopia. the trees blushed green to see the long awaited drops that bade well for them. the great mounds of dry soil seemed to put on a cape of the freshest green. the monsoon is here! the monsoon is here! there was nothing that coud douse my jubilation.
I was a part of the green and the grey. i was the drop and the leaf. i was the cloud and the earth. i was revelling in paradise.

heaven on earth

the moon was not too high in the sky that night and the breeze wasn't whistling, it was gliding. "the stars were blazing like rebel diamonds, cut out from the Sun" and all around was calm. nothing out of the ordinary, just a normal evening. but hey, i hope that this is what heaven felt like.
just the knowledge that i was living and breathing and soaking all this in was enough to set me spinning. it was somewhere close to 5 a.m. and there were, it seemed, a million people outside, on the streets, under that sky. "aah! this is the life!" that's what pretty much everyone was thinking and feeling. "let us live and die here at mood i", there was nothing beyond that.
it was like a state of induced nirvana that enveloped hundreds, if not thousands of youngsters, unchaperoned youngsters in IIT Powai. it was upto you: to lose yourself in the alchohol and drugs or to lose yourself in the wave of creative energy that bubbled and streamesd around the campus for those blissful five days.
that was it. the choice, the decision was yours.
they say that mood i makes or breaks you. it made me. it defined my sense of will-power and sealed my mind completely against the monsters that promise you paradise but lead you to purgatory. the monsters that, for a few hours of surrender, ask you to relinquish your life to them and give yourselves up as slaves to their cravings.
at the same time, the creativity kept you sane, the energy kept you grounded and the friendship, support and jealousies kept you human.
nothing compares to the exhilaration that you feel when you make the right choice. when you don't take the easy, well-trodden way out of experiencing the lows in life. that is when you know heaven, right here on earth.