The Dreamheron Diaries - স্বপ্নসারসের দিনলিপি

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

THE RAIN IT RAINS

Of all places I’ve seen it rain, the Amazon jungle is like no other place. The rain comes suddenly. Quickly it drenches you. It is so dense and so torrent that nothing short of a roof can protect you. An umbrella will not. The canopy of a tree will not. Raingear will not. The water drenches your skin, then it drenches your flesh and bones. And the sound drenches you in a like way: the sound = the sound of the rain + the sound of the leaves + the sound of the rain tormenting the leaves. Now comes a warm chill, a shiver – even in the sultry heat. Your own body feels different to you. Then you begin to see: The jungle is no longer the jungle you saw; the rain is no more the rain you know. It is the jungle and the rain. It is something new. It is an amorphous expanse that has no name – it should not be given a name. You are no longer in the Amazon of Iquitos or Manaus. You are in the Amazon of the Jivaros and the Aymaras. You are in an aboriginal place, an absolutely original place – the mythplace that is the Amazon.

Then, just as suddenly – the rain stops. It all stops.