City Season – The First Monsoon Shower, Khan Market
The wet days.
[Text and photos by Mayank Austen Soofi]
First, lightning and thunder. That upset the birds. Then a strong wind started. Leaves blew everywhere.
One evening The Delhi Walla was in Khan Market when the weather decided to take a turn.
It soon started to rain heavily. The market’s Front Lane and Middle Lane were at once emptied of their beautiful people though I managed to spot a woman who had just stepped out of The Artful Baker (very nice croissants!). She was carrying cake boxes and was completely drenched. Inside Faqir Chand & Sons Booksellers, the world was dry. The owner, Anup Kumar, was having chai and namkeen. His wife, Mamta, was cheerfully watching the rain fall outside. Their teenage son, Abhinav, stood at the shop’s other end. A very good-looking customer was speaking on the cellphone, saying, “Someone better read in music would tell you if it is closer to a symphony, a concerto or a requiem.”
As the rain continued to fall, a lonely brown dog took shelter under the bookshop’s awning and settled down just outside the glass door. It was a dry spot. The rain continued. This was the last day of an unbearably sweltering June and Delhi was receiving its first monsoon shower.
At long last
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Afterwards….
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What a downpour it was! I was inside the Shivaji Stadium Airport Metro Station when it started. The sound of the rain falling on the roof of the station is like an unending roar.
Sorry to rain on y’all’s parade but that wasn’t the Monsoon. It was just an overdue pre-Monsoon shower. The real thing will be here in a couple of days, Indra willing. We’d have to carry umbrellas in our work bags and give up wearing shoes.