Something about a rainy Kolkata

There is something quite special about Kolkata when it rains here.

There is something uncannily beautiful about the way it gets, cool, breezy, rainy and wistfully romantic whenever I am home, no matter how short the trip is. It's like I am being given more reasons to love this sleepy, laidback city full of an incandescent charm.

The tarred roads look shiny, reflecting the golden yellowness of the streetlights. The quietness interrupted by the sound of a car's tyres cruising on the puddles on an otherwise smooth street. The stray dogs playfully scamper about, while searching for a shelter for the night.

As I sit on the ledge by the window overlooking the road outside our house, the boys in my locality get together for their late-night adda. Their loud voices surprisingly aren't irritating tonight. Their jokes make me smile. Their voices have a strange inclusive quality about them. One of them has got cha in a thermos for the whole gang.

I see a couple walk past them, out for their post-dinner walk - the radiantly pregnant lady and her husband holding hands and enjoying the sudden drop in mercury. They share a private joke and laugh; the wind carries the happy sound in my direction...

I sniff the air. It smells of moist soil. The streets are almost empty, the street lights hazied and blurred by the heavens showering the scorching earth with the coolness of Kal Baishakhi. I run to the terrace to absorb it all in...

I face the strong nor'westers and get stung by the raindrops, which are huge and scanty at first. As I start walking along the railing on the terrace, the rain intensifies into an overwhelming cloudburst. I know nothing else. I want to know nothing else. I only know I am here, part of this beautiful moment.

PS - The above was followed by lots of predictable screaming by my mother who was upset for leaving the door to the rooftop open and the water on the staircase and the fact that I refuse to grow up. My father was bemused as always. 

But who cares. I slept with a big grin on my face. :D

Also see: Seduced by the Rains 
               Healing Showers of Pain