Drops

Oh these rains! Yes it’s the poet’s favorite season and every romantic’s dream but when you are rushing to office and need to get there in time rain is possibly the last thing you wan. And if it is rain like the one ailing Calcutta for the past few days.. well only a Calcuttan knows what it’s like.

Today morning when I was coming to office the world looked fresh and fine. The last few days a terrible downpour had lashed down on the city. While just a day ago we were grappling with a draught caution and a rainfall deficit we had to tackle flood situations in a few districts and there was a surplus.

Coming back from office was a total pain yesterday. I left office at 18:30 and reached home 20:40, while this same distance takes less than an hour to cover on any normal day. First reaching the bus stand was a torture. Autos refused to ply. Half of them had broken down, the other half did not want to reach the same fate. Cabs were reluctant to take a passenger for such a short distance, getting up on the rickshaw was never an option on this day.

Roads were waterlogged. (They still are in parts of the city), Water ranged from ankle deep to Knee deep at places. Hundreds of morbid individuals, tired after a day’s tyranny in office, looking from some solace at home, waded through. And a series of buses, cars, vans, trucks (wonder what those do in the city before ten in the night and in the office area too!) of various shapes and sizes honked and toiled through.

Once I reached the bus terminus I found myself at the end of a serpentine queue. There was a bus standing, but seats were taken. I braved having to stand in for the entire journey and got up. And let me not mention the inhuman crowd that there was. With the furious rain washing the windscreen white, and a hundred tired bodies waiting for the maddening traffic to end.

But that was yesterday.

I reached home, took a bath and a dish of the hot khichuri and ilish maach bhaja awaited me. Today is a new day, and bunch of roller coaster experiences awaited me.

The monsoons have this peculiar quality about them which no other season has you know. I hate the season. It makes roads dirty, and eventually your clothes. But then again, after a rushed shower everything looks so clean. The leaves are greener, the dirt and pollution is washed off. Coming to think of it the air itself is cleaner. I can breathe easy, without unconsciously pulling the handkerchief ( or in it’s absence my hands) to the nose. So when I walked out today morning after a lazy late sleep after yesterday’s tumultuous experience everything looked greener and fresher. I felt good, a spring in my step as I headed to office.

Suddenly out of the blue (quite literally so) dark clouds started gathering and hid the sun. I was waiting for a shuttle car, but none seemed to be ready to go where I wanted to go. After sometime, I found myself with trousers rolled up to the knee, wet umbrella in hand, bag tucked under an arm waving frantically at every passing vehicle. Now that I think about it I feel I must have looked quite a ridiculous spectacle but at that tie it was the only sane thing to do!

Finally a white Ambassador car came to the rescue. Quickly five other fellow sufferers piled up in the car and the journey to the office began. Now I do not for the love of God understand why we have a bypass which has such heavy traffic. The cars just stand there. As if it was one big all-brand showroom of cars. You have brilliant looking locomotives, but their basic motive of motion is defeated!

We trudged along, with water dripping through the windows. And the roads! God save them, whatever bits and pieces of it survive. Like a malnourished child whose ribs are exposed, the roads on our city’s bypass lie writhing under the pressure of thousands of cars. As the slow motion car advanced I was taken over by this bout of claustrophobia only to find out that all the windows were shut and 7 able bodied adults were breathing.

At this point I focused my attention outside, on the road. Billboards were stripped to the bare frames. The potholes on the road were not only giving us the Captain-Haddock-in-rough-seas experience but would have shamed the craters on the moon. A lady had lost her sandal in a puddle and was very cautiously trying to look for it in there. A kid sweetly held on to her father’s raincoat as he drove the scooter even when she was blinded by the angry drops lashing on her small specs.

I had reached. I paid some wet notes to the driver. Umbrellas were flying hither thither, after two auto changes through muddy waterlogged roads, I reached office with a drenched dress, soaked shoes and unkempt hair. And from then on I am shivering in the chill of the A.C. and waiting to go home.