It was raining heavily with water clogging the street and the hard-hitting drops keeping people restricted to wherever they were, maybe home or office or an educational institution or simply waiting under a shaded place.
But Vasant was prepared for it, he knew these heavy rains very well and he knew how much his city was unprepared for it with water filling on roads and people rushing to head home and causing a jam.
Vasant had found a place to park his car, the open front parking of a closed shopping mall and he had his rain kit. It wasn’t part of going to the office but returning was the time with the rain.
The flask was filled with tea from the office and the small bag had packets of snacks in the form of namkeen.
He wasn’t the only one there, there were others waiting out the rain or the jam, especially those on two wheelers, but it wasn’t too crowded, one could have a moment or two of silence and Vasant enjoyed those moments. It gave him short but much valued time to relax, the sound of rain on the car drowned away most sounds of the busy world and the busy mind.
It wasn’t just the peace, the now closed mall contained memories. There was a time when Vasant in his high school days came here with his parents and elder sister, an evening of buying some house essentials accompanied by dinner. Now it was past, his mother was gone, father rarely left the house, elder sister was abroad and Vasant was about to get married.
Vasant played some instrumental music and turned the volume knob up, for this moment he needed something more to drown away the sound of thoughts.
Written by Anuran Chatterji
Early Morning Memories 