It was a dreary day in August with the monsoon beating an insistent rhythm on the tin roofs that lined the road to college. Shyam was late to class. He pedaled faster on his huge old bicycle that his dad had given him on Diwali. The wheels splashed water everywhere and drew a thin muddy line on his back with the whiplash of the rear wheel. He was thoroughly drenched by now and miserable. This was the fourth time in this month that he would be wet and bedraggled in college. The spectre of his drippy self sidling into class was not a one that he liked to imagine.
He zipped by the college gates and almost collided with someone crossing the road at a run. He swerved at the last moment and crashed straight into the hedges lining the road. The bike upturned and he went flying over the handle head first into a brambly thicket that raked like a tiger’s paw across his back. He was stunned and temporarily winded by his sudden ejection from the real world. He managed a gurgle before something poked him sharply in the ribs and he realized that the bike was lying over him with the handles goring him like a bull at a fight.
He lay there for a few moments and slowly opened his eyes. He looked up to see a dark form looming up above him. A black plastic raincoat with a face was peering at him through wet eyelashes. The eyelashes blinked and a few drops of water fell on his face. He blinked.
‘Are you ok? I am soooo sorry. I really am. Please tell me you are ok.’ The face in the raincoat blurted out.
He started a mental rundown of all his appendages and wiggled them for reassurance. ‘I think I am ok. Just a little shaken. And very very wet.’ He managed to say sheepishly. A hand materialized out of the black raincoat and offered help. He noticed a green bangle dangling at the wrist of the outstretched hand. He grabbed the hand and lifted himself up holding his bike in the other. They both looked at each other through the slivery raindrops trying to identify, classify and verify each other. Their eyes met and smiled. Then their lips broke out into a wide grin. He recognized Gauri, the vibrant girl who ran the hundred meters in the college athletic team. She was a deer on steroids. And now she had run over him.
They both started walking towards the college steps oblivious to the rain and the bell that rang in the distance. A soothing slish slosh of their footsteps echoed around the rapidly emptying college quadrangle. She turned towards him and asked, ‘Are you sure you are ok? Do you want to have a quick check up with Nurse Amina?’
‘Oh no. I will be fine. Just need to get out of this damn rain. All I need is a hot cup of chai and some pakodas. And I will be fine’, he reassured her.
‘Then why do you want to go to class? How about I make some chai and pakodas for you?’
He looked at her quizzically, stunned at the offer. A slow warmth spread through his ears. She grabbed his arm and turned him around. He swung back onto the bicycle and she jumped onto the top bar. They squelched out of the gates and into the inviting rain.
Whenever the rains start in Bombay, my dad always asks for and gets hot tea and pakodas and never regrets the class he skipped that rainy day..