Is it the monotonous beat of the rain, creating white noise that washes over and dulls every other sound? Is it the temperate winds that is such a relief from tropical heat? Is it the myriad refractions that pattern the windows? Or perhaps it is something deeper - an instinctive rejoicing over the revivification of the earth, new-made through rain - undulled by centuries of civilisation.

To a city brat who has never experienced the destructive force of a flood, rain is a metaphor, a lullaby, a work of art. Never a harbringer of doom.