It rains very sparsely in most of Southern California, and especially in the High Desert Areas (where I now live), east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains on your way to Las Vegas from Los Angeles. But once in a while, the thunderclouds gather from almost nowhere and it really rains like the monsoons of my birthplace, Bombay.

Of course, unlike the monsoons of Bombay that last for hours, if not days, here it only lasts for a few hours. And the people here just hate it even when it lasts for a few minutes! But, I just love those showers as they bring back very sweet memories of my childhood and youth and of course, Varsha!

Varsha –literally translates to “ a shower” from Hindi; but, of course, I am not talking about any shower that comes from the rains, I am talking about my friend, Varsha. 

Oh, how well I remember that name! And especially when there really is a shower from the rains like the monsoons of my beautiful Bombay! But who is Varsha? Did I love her? 

Yes and no. 

“What do you mean by such an answer” you may well ask, “yes and no is no answer, either one does or does not love a person of the opposite sex”. 

And you may be correct. One usually wants to divide the world into two dichotomies - right or wrong – black or white – yes or no - this way or that way! 

Well, life does not come in dichotomies of two extremes! It comes in all shades of colors, and it is truer of love than any other facets of one’s life!

And the question is much more difficult to answer when we are talking about 16 year olds, yes, especially when one is about 16 years old - but then, I have not ever been able to determine the correct answer even now, and it has been many decades since I was 16 years old!!

Varsha was a young 16 year old, vibrant, good-looking, girl who entered my life on a rainy day in June or July in 1953. When I say rainy day, I mean the rainy days of the monsoons of Bombay! One has to experience the monsoons of Bombay to really understand them. It is not your typical shower now and gone within 10 minutes! The old cliché of “when it rains, it pours” is just the right description of the monsoons of Bombay! 

Anyway, it was really raining very heavily the first day of college - June 20, 1953 – when I went to the college for the first time to attend my classes! 

Going to college in is more like being a freshman or sophomore in High School here in the US. But there is a big difference - the fact that till one enters college usually one goes to an “all boys” or an “all girls” school – at least, that was the way for me in 1953 in Bombay. Colleges are co-educational and it is perhaps the first time that young people of this age group can intermingle without adult supervision. 

So how did I meet Varsha? Very simply because our last names happened to be very similar, so we were in line next to each other (she was in front of me) to get into class! 

Now in India, when you go to college for your first year, you are only segregated by what your intended major is going to be – Arts or Science. Once that is determined, you have to take the same classes and though the classrooms may change, you are usually going to have the same classmates for the whole day!

And so, there I was, a strapping young man of 16 who had been at an “all-boys” Catholic parochial school until then, standing in line behind a very beautiful girl of 16 or so! And both being of a gregarious nature, we had to come to know each other!!! So our first meeting was more or less predestined when we both decided (independently) which college to enter and what our intended major (Science) was going to be.

So here I am, chatting away with a 16 year old, very beautiful, young “thing” and going to different classes with her and chatting with somebody of the opposite sex – especially when I had never been in that kind of a situation unsupervised ever before! And so what is so difficult to imagine that I would not fall “head over heels” in love with Varsha! 

But wait!!!!!!

I did not “fall head over heels” in love with Varsha the first time I saw her or spoke to her. She may have (who knows?), but I certainly did not! 

Now one has to remember, we are talking of the India of 1953 – only 6 years after India gained it’s Independence from the “British Raj” (in 1947), and still steeped in the Victorian traditions of the British Empire! There were no “dates” and one did not go “out” with members of the opposite sex (of the same age group) that were not in any way related to you. You might mingle with them or talk with them at college or when you met them after college, but that was it! No formal “dates”. Yes, young couples did “meet” on clandestine “dates” even then, but not me! I had been brought up in the “proper” British traditions of the “stiff- upper-lip”, and could not even think about going on a “date” with Varsha!

So we got to talking and being friendly while at college. She was my class-fellow, as were a 150 other boys and girls of perhaps the same age group, all in Section I of the first year Science group at a college in Bombay.

Now as natural, and I believe it is as applicable today as it was in 1953, cliques form within large groups with like-minded people of similar tastes and temperaments and so it was with us two. We both became a part of about 30 or 35 like-minded students, mostly boys, with about 6-7 girls. We would “hang-out” together during the time we did not have classes or after classes.

Being very beautiful, and very talkative, Varsha was naturally a great favorite of many boys and much sought after by some of them. BUT NOT ME! I did not pay her any particular attention, but we were friendly and would often walk to the bus stop from where we took different public buses to our homes, and would many-a-times, eat our favorite dish, the “Masala-Dosha” at a local restaurant that was near the bus-stop. 

Now it so happened, that in about September or October of my first year at college, I got sick with flu and could not go to college for a few days, and lo and behold, Varsha came to our house, which was about 3 or 4 miles from the College! 

I was very surprised and had to make excuses to my mother as she (my mother) was wondering why a girl had come looking for me from college! I just told my mother that I had made Varsha my “sister” as she had no brother, and therefore she had come looking for me. Anyway, now Varsha got a “license” to visit me at home too, and I was still under the impression that I was just her friend! 

We could now go out as she was my “sister” and we remained “friends” even after she left the college where we had met and went to another college. 

Varsha “flunked” the first bi-yearly examination given by the University after being in the same college with me for 2 years and thought that she might do better with training at another college. Why she kept up our friendship I will never know, except that she must have had some “special” feeling for me, but I NEVER reciprocated with any “special” or “sexual” show of affection for her. Yet, I did enjoy her company and would often phone her and talk to her whenever I could, and this continued for nearly 8-9 years till I left for the United States for further studies in February 1962. 

I honestly do not remember when she last saw me before I left for the US, but I do remember that she was not too happy that I was leaving for the US. And that would have been the end of this story, had I not gone back to India after 4 years to get married. 

Now many of you may know (and some of you may not know) that in those day (and it is still prevalent to a large extent today in many Indian families), young men would look for “prospective” brides from young women of marriageable age who had been recommended by relatives and family friends. The boy and girl would meet once or twice (or longer, depending on the “modernization” of the boy and girl), and if they (and their parents) approved of each other, the parents would negotiate a marriage date. Of course, there are many variations to the afore-mentioned “system”, but the basic “formula” is as stated. Unless, of course, you have a “love-marriage”! That is, the boy and girl “fall in love” and then inform their parents that they want to get married to each other. At that stage, either the parents approve of the “match” or they don’t, and, depending on the determination of the young couple in question, they get married or not!

I had lost touch with most of my friends in India as I had been out of India for 4 years! I did look up old friends and of course, one of them was my old friend and “sister” Varsha. I contacted her at her work, for I knew that she worked for a particular airline as an airhostess. She told me that she had got married herself (by her own choice) a year or two before to somebody at her work place. She invited me to her home. 

I still remember that it was a rainy day in July and again, true to the monsoons of Bombay, it was raining on that day too. It was about 4 PM in the evening. I knocked on the door and she opened it. She was dressed in a white sari, with very little make up, and as usual, was looking as pretty as ever. I met her very cordially and we started talking of our past meetings and friends and what each of us had been doing these past few years. She asked me if I had an “American girlfriend” (I didn’t) and had I returned for good or was planning to go back to the US, and what I was doing back in India. 

I told her that I had returned after my MBA and that I had admission for a Doctorate in Business and before I left, my mother was very eager that I get married to an Indian girl, so I was “looking” at some proposals. Half jokingly, I said, “Oh Varsha, I should have married you before I left for the US then I would not be meeting different girl to get married to me now!” And at this she just turned pale, and quickly turned her face and I could swear that I heard a sob from her. Suddenly, there was a loud crack of lightning and all the lights went out with a loud “boom” of thunder! And at that very moment, and showers began to beat insistently on the panes of her balcony window and a gust of wind brought them rushing into the room to wet Varsha and me with the varsha of the sprinkles of cold water. And before I even knew it, she ran across the room – and was in my arm, just hiding her face on the lapels of my shirt, which was now sprinkled with raindrops and her tears. I held her and patted her head, not knowing if I was consoling her from the scare of the lightning and thunder or from the unspoken love that she had expressed with the soft tears in her eyes. I was just stunned! It was not the “boo-boo” type of crying, but with small tears in her eyes that she had very unsuccessfully tried to hide, and then it struck me! She had actually LOVED ME and wanted very much for me to “make the first move”, but the dumb ox that I was, I never really understood that she was really in love with me! And now it was too late! 

And just as suddenly, the lights came back on again and she quickly stepped back and the tender moment passed leaving both of us in embarrassed silence for a few moments - and the magic of the moment was past! 

Slowly, but with a grim and sober determination, she quickly called out to her servant-girl to bring out the tea and “Samosas” that were till then hidden from my view. I was absolutely at a loss for words at that juncture! I just could not think straight. I kept thinking what a great fool I had been. I had never understood the feelings that Varsha had for me! 

But, as my father so often said, time and tide wait for no man. It was too late to do anything about it now. And I had NEVER in my wildest dreams ever thought of Varsha in that way, ever. Yes, I was very fond of her, loved talking to her, had a very great fondness for her, but did I love her???? 

I made a hurried departure from her house after that and I only remember that I was drenched to the skin by the time I found a taxi that brought me back home that evening, shaken to my core, not only from the varsha of the monsoon but also from the Varsha of my past. 

And I saw her again last when she attended my marriage reception that my parents gave at Bombay in September 1966. Again, as though to grace Varsha with a varsha, it was raining lightly as it was the tailend of the Monsoon session at Bombay. She came alone, without her husband, either by design or by chance, I never knew. The fact remains that I never met him. We even had photos of her along with all my college friends taken on that occasion and on many rainy days, when I am alone; I still look at it and the other photos of Varsha and now, knowing for a fact that she loved me, God knows since when, still wonder, and often ask myself the question – Did I, or did I not, really love Varsha????? You tell me!