I wish it would Rain

The heavy downpour blurred the windscreen of her car; she turned up the wiper a notch. Heavy traffic always irritates her but the streets of Calcutta turn dysfunctional every time the sky breaks up, it was no new feat! Through all the maneuvers the car had to come to a standstill. It had been raining all day and it felt like the darkest nights had descended at 3 p.m., the street lights have already been turned on, orange against the dark grey.
Although city life comes to an almost standstill with the monsoon rains, people inside their homes secretly enjoy it, people on the streets mutter curses under their breaths but once safely inside they order hot cups of tea and beguni or Khichuri and ilish maach bhaja because it’s the perfect weather for it. The affluent love to sit with their glasses of single malt, read aloud rabindranath or hum raga desh.
Maya was unusually lost in her thoughts today, she seemed oblivious of all the honking and chaos around her...

Naah... am not good at writing fiction, whenever I start it always heads in the direction of a cheap MB style story only that I can never come up with interesting enough twists and misunderstandings. For example, if I continued in the direction my last paragraph was treading I would either end up writing about some nostalgia that the protagonist would have about her lost love or bump into some handsome hunk in the rains! How trashy the readers would say, right?
So, happy with my visions of Calcutta and it's rains I am also starting to fantasize about pakodas and adrak-wali chai, bestowed on me by Delhi. Rains were far and few between in Delhi, but when it did oh yes, it poured! In Calcutta I never quite enjoyed getting wet in the rains cos it was always mucky and humid also the only opportunity of getting wet in Calcutta was on the way back from school and the white school uniform didn't help much!!
Whereas in Delhi rains cooled those dreadfully hot days and the smell when the raindrops hit the earth produced one of the most beautiful fragrances that exists in the natural world. I don't think there is a phrase to describe this smell in English, but in hindi the 'sondhi sondhi khushboo' is just so apt and does total poetic justice to it. And we loved getting wet in the rain, somehow it always made me feel like a film star thanks to bollywood and the actresses getting wet in their white/red chiffon sarees.
Rains also do wonders to one's moods- it can make you sad, romantic, cheerful but it never fails to create the ultimate atmosphere for an 'adda'. Gorom cha, makha muri and lots of chatter against the pitter patter of rain and if someone has a guitar a couple of tunes aren't too bad either.
I shall recount a fairly recent memory of the rains in calcutta, and by recent I mean about 10 years ago; It was a weekday morning and it had been raining since the wee hours, when such rains happened we always wished and hoped that the school would declare a rainy day holiday, very hesitantly we got ready for school and got into the car... on the way we saw heavily water-logged streets and prayed harder for the holiday. My prayers were answered and dad drove me back home. Once home we all someone convinced my dad to bunk his work too (still don't know how he got convinced) so mom made khichuri for lunch, we all goofed around enjoying a Sunday-like experience and watched a very cute movie called Corrina, Corrina on T.V. I am really scared of storm and thunders but my parents just love it, especially my dad who likes watching the storm so he took me to the terrace to show how beautiful the skies looked and how the trees swayed but I screamed and ran back in to the apartment!
Dad says that if on an important day it rained then it was auspicious because on all the days when good things had happened to him it had rained and somehow I was born on a rainy day during the peaks of monsoon in Calcutta and I also got married on a rainy day, so I have great associations with the rain too.
Sometimes they are a source of irritation especially during cricket matches! But that apart I love them as long as I don't have to be on the streets.

It rains in Dresden everyday, I wish it would Rain!

p.s. I have a long association with the photograph as well, it was on my very first yahoo profile ages ago. Whoever clicked it many thanks to him/her.. I titled it jara bristite bhijechilo