Or how a mild drizzle can make me rant

Who would have thought I’d enjoy the wet weather here today? I repeatedly crib about the moodiness of the sun. The sudden spell of drops tend to put me off. But today, with rr, as we crossed the Tower Bridge, the mild drizzle evoked something else altogether.

Perhaps it’s where we live, but when it rains, I don’t get to smell the mud. For years, it’s what I have associated with rains. Especially the first rain of the monsoon in Delhi. The swirling dust clouds from Rajasthan, windows quickly shut to keep the dust grains out. Suddenly though, the sky would break into thunder, and devastate the orange glow of the dust storm, fat, and I mean FAT drops of water would land thud on thirsty ground. I told rr about how we’d run out into the rain. The smell of wet earth slapping your nostrils. Walking along the South Bank, I thought I caught a whiff, a mild whiff of the almost same scent. rr, also equally keen on photographing anything in sight happily snapped away while I dipped in and out of my adolescence.

The uselessness of an umbrella is never realized with more irony. The rain and the wind snap the umbrella upside down. The best part was that school assemblies eventually got canceled. I never loathed anything more in my life. Morning assemblies in schools ought to be banned.

Am listening to an FM station that promises less talk and more music. I wonder if I should wage an intellectual war against pointless nostalgia. (Does nostalgia ever have a point?) When it rained in the afternoon, and I came back from school, I’d switch on the radio. At the mercy of some RJ’s godawful music taste. Something about monsoon and snacking though. It just makes me want to crawl to the nearest plate of hot pakoras, bondas or samosas.
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