Rain

Short Story

The downpour was so unexpected that she was caught unprepared. The sun had been merciless in the past few weeks and the skies clear. 'No reason to carry an umbrella now ; was there?' she grumbled to herself. To make things worse, she had been caught between her school and home, on a straight desolate piece of road that had only one bus stop and nothing else. Her track and field skills came handy in the dash to a relative shelter. "I am already wet!" she thought disgustedly and was about to wring her skirt when she noticed she wasn't alone. Standing at the corner was a man..no a boy a little older than her, holding an umbrella open. "Why does he need an umbrella...the bus stand has a shade?" she thought to herself. Then she realised the rain water was leaking from the tin roof at that corner. But still she found it strange that the boy hadn't moved to a drier area.

The sudden rain seems to go on endlessly. It was getting dark. She fidgeted. No one else had come into the bus stop. It was a strange and awkward silence that hung between and her solitary company who didn't turn to face her even once. The silence pressed down until she could almost feel it pressing down on her back, and she was about to blurt something out when the rain suddenly stopped. The boy suddenly turned towards her, nodded and left. And it was as if someone had switched off the mute button, she could hear beyond the silence. But it was time to go home and her bus was there.

She hated rain. It made the world look grey, made her socks wet before she reached school and she would end up feeling the soggy things throughout the day. It had been raining since Monday now. Not even three days and things were looking even worse as her friend has managed to sit on her umbrella accidentally and break it. She would have to run for the bus stop again in the rain today.

But today she noticed the boy before she managed to hop the puddle before the bus stop. He turned to look at her and the acknowledgement somehow flattered her. She smiled hesitantly and asked "Which school do you go to?" He mumbled the name of her own school. Strange she doesn't remember seeing this boy before. But then she hardly looks at every boy in the school and he looked like a senior student. Her thought was interrupted as suddenly the rain took a break. She was disappointed. She had to wait for the bus and the boy will leave like the other day. But the boy simply shut his umbrella and waited. She must have looked enquiringly at him for he answered "I am waiting". "Waiting? for what or who?" she thought but then her bus was there and she had to make her way through jostling, wet people. She managed to peek through the bus window. The shelter was empty, the boy had left. It was impossible to see if he had boarded the bus. She sighed and her thought switched back to her history test.

"I am Tanima," she introduced herself on their fifth date. "Date?...ha ha, I am going mad," she thought. She seemed to keep meeting this strange boy at this bus stop just by herself. "Gaurav" he said without turning and then suddenly stepped off into the rain and left. She was startled and a little hurt at such a curt response. Like she cared!

But she did. It gnawed and gnawed at her for the next four days. The rain took a break for some days also. The sunny weather cheered her up and she almost forgot about her mysterious man . Then on Thursday she almost collided with him in her dash to avoid the rain. "Do you take the bus everyday?" the boy asked. She was startled and simply nodded. "Will you come tomorrow?" the boy again asked. "Yes, probably." "Will you wait for me then," he asked. She was too confused to do anything but nod in agreement. He smiled a dazzling happy smile, and then took off in a run through the rain. She was flustered and her cheeks were hot. Did the boy like her?

She had felt this great anticipation the whole day next day and could wait till the bell rang and she ran to the bus stop. It was empty. But he did ask her to wait, didn't he? So she waited. And waited. The rain was cold. It started to grow darker and darker. Still she waited. Finally, she left. Feeling bitter and embarrassed for having fallen for something so ridiculous.

"Will you wait for me?" she woke up with a start with that voice in her head. And sneezed. She had managed to catch a cold thanks to her fruitless waiting. As she dozed off after having medicine, she whispered in her mind "But I waited and you never came!"

The boy held his handout and asked "I was waiting for you, shall we go?" Tanima felt happy and walked out with him.

Tanima's death shook everyone because no one had thought her cold was that bad. Her fever had climbed dangerously and she simply never woke up.

........

Rajiv wished he had never transferred to a new school mid season, specially during monsoon. He hates rain. He was getting drenched to the bone as he dashed to the only bus stop in the vicinity. He was about to repeat a few choicest curses he had picked up recently when he noticed the girl in the corner. Always sure of his good looks, he turned and said "Hi, I am Rajiv".

"I am Tanima."

Swiss Cows and Jingling Bells!

First of all let me apologize for the long hiatus (under the assumption that someone gives a damn!...oh well self- delusion can do wonders for your ego). It was partly due to a spur of the moment trip to the Swiss Mountains where I met the incredible Swiss cows that are said to give 20 liters of milk a day (India is never going to make a dent in the chocolate market for sure). Even though I am not into travelogues like my fellow blogger Illusions, I think I need to share a few bits of this trip with you all.

Traveling in and out of UK is very very expensive. I swear if they could charge you for breathing the British air, they would. Anyway, we paid a sweet sum for our three day guided tour, which incidentally started from Heathrow Airport and ended there, leaving us the task to arrange for transport to and from the airport itself. Now for all those who are familiar with my location, I live around 70 miles to the south of London and it takes about 2 hours or more to get to the airport, whatever travel mode you adopt. But the sweetest thing was the flight time - 8.50 am, which meant we had to report at 6.50 am, since it was a international flight. This meant we had to leave Ipswich by 4.30am at least. And nothing runs that early in the morning except Taxis, which of course would have cost us half the amount of the while tour package itself. Add to the the return flight at 9.15pm put us in the same situation again.

So, brilliant as I am, I found the perfect solution. Hire a car, drive to a paid parking lot near Heathrow and let it rot there for three days! That was the cheapest and most flexible arrangement that I could find. And it was such a waste of the car hire that it literally hurt for me to agree to my own idea! But agree I did. And that worked out pretty well at the end.

Now the other interesting bit would be our tour itself. Right after we landed in Zurich and boarded the coach that would take us everywhere during the tour, our guide took charge, who I will call the EnergyBunny (as in Duracell) for the sake of anonymity. He told us that while on the tour he is the boss, and when he whistles (which no other European evidently does) we are all to come to heel. And for the next three days, his ear splitting whistle had us all running. As one of us commented, we felt like it was a school trip.

To maintain our strict and hectic schedule, we also had to go on command. Yes, all those of you who are snickering, we were always shown the toilets and told to do our thing in the given time. Talk about potty training! And in the end, as one fellow sufferer pointed out, we all saw more Swiss toilets then landmarks in these three days. But I was personally very happy to have my own sat nav to toilets!

And then there was the whole charm of travelling in the group - the parents who could never get their kids ready and set on time, the ladies who were always late because they kept freshening up their make up and the occasional lovey dovey couples who just had to take the perfect shot. And the sound of the sharp whistle followed by our guide's bellow bringing us all running to the coach. In between, he also kept us entertained with jokes, song, games.....and a constant stream of information - like why do Swiss cows wear bells of different size? Anyone interested? Well it seems, bells of different size creates a sort of melody when the cows move, instead of a cacophony that would result if all the bells sounded the same. And this melody, reportedly, causes the cows to give more milk! ( Is the milk industry walah in India reading this?)

All in all, it was a unique and memorable and hopefully the only guided trip I will ever take. Now if you all would excuse me, I need to go unwrap that Swiss Dark Chocolate that is waiting for me....ciao!

Here is a Swiss sunset to wrap it up