Everyone should carry an umbrella. EVERYONE! Existence will not be perfect until it becomes as impossible for a person to carry another person’s umbrella as carrying another person’s driving licence. It may sound a little over-the-top, but to the great Indian writer (also an umbrella devotee) RK Narayan, this was merely a truth that needed to be spoken more often.
RK Narayan (1906-2001) wrote about his obsession with umbrellas in his collection of personal essays A Writer’s Nightmare. That’s what we, as readers, enjoy about a personal essay: the writer gets an opportunity to be slightly vulnerable, and hence, slightly closer to the reader. And that’s what Narayan does in the opening paragraph of the essay, where he confesses that he has all kinds of phobias about losing his umbrellas (yes, there were more than one).
It’s not just about carrying an umbrella (or two, or three), what bothers the author even more is the tragic fact that most people don’t know how to hold an umbrella, let alone how to use it. In order to bring some order in the universe, he proposes a particular technique to use an umbrella. He says:
There should be neither stiffness not too much flexibility at the wrist of an arm that holds the umbrella; it must be adjusted properly to the pressure of the wind. Wind is an insidious enemy whose effect is most wearing; the ribs may be made of iron but it is as a broomstick to the wind. What must protect an umbrella is an understanding wrist.
At this point you might wonder — shouldn’t it be the umbrella protecting the human and not the other way around?
Well, it’s just one of the idiosyncrasies of an umbrella lover and we should leave it at that. It’s quite similar to the way religious people defend their God, although the God is supposed to defend the entire universe. In short, it doesn’t matter: people do what they have to, without having to worry about a thing called reason.
RK Narayan’s rants may seem naive, but there is something interesting to consider here. At one point in the essay, the author says, ‘most people never think of an umbrella except when it rains.’ It’s true and the consequences go way beyond the rain and umbrellas. One must prepare for the tragedy before the tragedy strikes. And this is specially relevant to India and its people. Our tendency to procrastinate till the last second of the deadline might have led more people to procreate. Still… it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it wasn’t the only thing we ever did.
Kalampedia 