The rains are here....
Rains have begun in Kolkata. And with the rains, the mud and the mess have come on. Life becomes stuck in a mire of poodles,slush and traffic jams. The already messy Kolkata roads become messier and tougher to navigate. People hang on to the buses for their dear lives. Cyclists pedal hard to escape the torrent. Cycle rickshaws with a curious sort of plastic covering hood, make their way across the city. One good thing, though. There is a respite from the intensely hot weather. From the window of my office, I can see the clouds lining the nearby multistoried buildings. Dark clouds over the horizon. I used to like the rains when I was young, and we could run down the huge school grounds, soaking the water into our shoes. Now, practical concerns of car navigation, going to office and so forth have taken over, and I am not really too enamoured by the onset of the rains. I have seen rains in a number of cities. Kolkata, Mangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi, Pune, Chenn