Time travel in a rain drop

You can’t hear it right now, but I can. The pattering of the rain drops outside my window. First time since I have moved to my new place-  a rainy day- warm and welcoming- trying to entice me into stepping onto the fire-escape outside my window and feel the drops on my skin. Few other things can take you to another time-..

Like a time capsule it can take to a cold rainy day in New York.

It’s a November day in New York- chilly and dark. As I strap into my boots and warm jacket, I pray that the wind and rain don’t ruin our weekend here. I am a visitor to this city and am hoping that the weather would be more forgiving than in Boston. It is not. But we are here for the weekend- so we’ll make the most of it- we head out into the rain- the gray sky an evil promise of unrelenting rain throughout the day. As we duck in and out of the subway, navigating umbrellas and gloving and ungloving hands, we alter our itinerary to be indoors most of the day and somewhere the grayness is forgotten, the Manhattan wind ( I would have loved to use the word breeze, but it wasn’t as refreshing and loving as a breeze should be) is forgiven as we find random string lit restaurants, forgotten book stores and  Second City comedy shows. I am secretly surprised as we are on the subway heading home that night, slightly drowsy, that a day that I had thought was going to be fractured with annoyance and argument ( trust me weather does that to you) could be sealed with laughter and discovery of friendships.   

or to Mumbai..

it’s a rainy day in Mumbai- I am still at KC College- probably my final year of undergrad, although I can’t be certain when. It’s been rainy all morning, as we rolled up our jeans and ran from the Churchgate train station to the college, a 10 minute walk away. As the day drags on, I get distracted by the rain outside, restless to face it rather than the threat of it. We don’t have practicals that afternoon and most of the class makes a bee line to go to the library to study- you’re right it’s probably our final year. I start persuading my two friends to go to Marine Drive- “Can you imagine what the sea looks like right now?  The wind and rain in our face? We should totally go, let’s study next week, promise!” One of them falls pretty easily and then once the majority is decided, we convince the third. We trapeze into the rain- now jumping into the same puddles we were escaping that morning- ducking through the shops as the water patters down the blue tarps providing them protection. Marine drive in the rain has its own story- few people come then- especially in the middle of a working day, in the middle of a torrential downpour. But there are a few kids and then people like us- watching the waves crash into tetrapods at the wall- there are a few abandoned slippers there and empty wrappers of the peanut cones forgotten as the rain took people by surprise. We dance in gleeful abandon, some street kids join us and we let them- and right there, as fancy cars pass us by and umbrellas give way in the unrelenting wind, we find the most unadulterated joy in the world.

p.s. as I come home and my mom sees me soaked through, slowly realizing that I did this on purpose and not just in transit, she shakes her head at me, calls me mad, hands me a towel and then brings me Amul’s butterscotch icecream.