It always rains here; at least once a day. Rain means a lot of things to different people living here, secluded from the so-called modern world. It washes away somebody’s pain but at the same time it’s the source of somebody else’s pain.

Rain brings so many things to this place. It brings a smile on the face of a farmer, for it helps him grow his crops. It brings relief to residents, for it washes away the dirt from its land and replaces pollution with the fresh aroma of the soil.

Though rain, along with its every little droplet, is treated as blessing in this land, there are times when everybody is fed up with the rain. The hailstorms beat crops to death; the floods sweep away the roof that once offered the poor shelter and also the whirlwind that snatches the lives of innocent people. The same rain that was once treated as a blessing becomes an unavoidable menace that demolishes its own reason for existence but then again the people who live here do not have any say whether it should come or go. It after all is nature that decides everything here.

The rain brings pain, it brings obstacles and it spreads bitterness at times. It brings thunders that conceal the plea of help from an innocent girl, a troubled mother and a lonely grandmother who are constantly under the yoke of the patriarch. The rain invites, the rain taunts and the rain skilfully masks the horrors brought upon the young girls whose innocence is brutally trampled by thirsty soul-sucking hands of men that are as familiar as the rain.

The same rain that once lightened up their cheeks and helped nourish them now pulls them down to the harsh ground of reality—the reality that every girl in this land shares the same fate. For these incidents occur as frequent as the rain pours down in this land. People think this land is blessed by the heavens but like every other visitor they only look at the deceptive beauty and never bother to observe the creases of pain, the bittersweet smile on the faces of girls who curse the rain every second of their lives.

The rain might conceal her cries. It might also wash away the sins of those wicked hands; the blood flowing down her soft thighs, her budding youth but it isn’t able to wash away the shame, the guilt that has been forced upon her delicate shoulders. As the rain pours down on its own course; the familiar hands roam around places that are unimaginable for a girl of her age. She cries louder as the brutal hands snatch away every inch of sanity from her soul yet she’s forced to take the blame upon herself and let others treat her like a shelter ruined by the rain. She’s thrown away by the so-called society to the farthest corner of this land. And amid all this, the unfortunate mother has no choice but to watch her naïve daughter experience all this in her life, all because of the fear of her husband. She can only look up to the sky and pray that her daughter will be lucky enough to have a decent roof above her head so that she won’t have to suffer in the rain for the rest of her life.

Yes, I loved the rain. The rain had always graced my life with blissful memories. The rain drops played a cheerful music to my soul every time it rained down upon me. The soft caresses of the wind that blew after the rain; the aroma of the soil further created magic on its own to heal the wounds of my heart but the moment I came across the same situation as the other girls, the rain seemed so distant. It filled me with an unknown anger and anguish as if enlightening me about the facades of rain.

Yes, I share the same harsh fate like any other girl stripped off her innocence. Yes, I am like any other girl in this land who curses the rain that’s the source of our discontentment but amid the rain that graces this land, I do not remember any faces I see but I vividly remember the pain, the anguish that covers the faces of these girls I see every day.

However, I also see a glint of hope within the deep dark pools of agony in their eyes similar to mine.  I believe that someday the rain can heal what it has hurt for we know that it’s in the nature for the rain to come first and the sun to rise afterwards. Sometimes I see the glistening remain on the leaves and the roads and it gives me hope that the shine which will glisten in our lives will be equally magnificent and truly help us wash away our pains.

Lately, as I see the number of girls increasing in this land I’ve come to realise that I cannot wait for the shine to arrive by itself because it might be blocked by the persistent clouds. So, as the rain falls today I promise to clear away the streams of hot tears that invade every little girl’s cheek, to heal their heavy hearts and to let their pleas be heard even in the loudest and the scariest of thunder. For I know I’ll have to be my own shine that emerges from my heart in aftermath of rain. Also, I hope that my daughters won’t have to fear the rain that has made this land a “The Land of Rain”.

Rayamajhi is pursuing MBBS at BPKIHS, Dharan