Des Mere..

As corny as it may sound.. when you are away from India, you don't feel homesick .. you feel homeland-sick!

I see the dull grey rains in London, on streets crowded with people and the way it contrasts a rainy day in India (anywhere in India these days!) hits me hard.

Here it hardly pours when you are out in the open. It pours late night, early morning, may be at an odd hour in the day when you are in office .. but never at the time when you are in the open.

Well.. if you are out on a not-so-sunny-day weekend, then it might rain in all possible ways.. drizzles, downpour, showers etc etc.. but not long enought to leave you like a wet puppy shivering its way to the shelter!

Coming back to the weekedays, in Liverpool Strt atleast..you are hardly in the open. The rail station is as prim as a mall, ( infact .. it IS a mall. 3 storeyed, with range of things from hot pasties to branded vest -n-bow tie suits..you get everything!) and it dosen't leak.
The moment your train enters the station, till you leave the station, you are covered.

You have a walkway which leads you to a road, and it has a metal canopy all the way.. so even if you do leave the station, it takes a couple of mins to get into the open. The moment the canopy ends, well dressed office goers (and thats the mildest version of it.. Londoners dressed for office are a show! Just amazing variety of formal clothes, shoes, bags..even umbrellas! ) open their umbrellas and dash to the nearest building, which mazes through the streets and leads you to your building without getting you drenched!
At the reception, you have carpets almost all over, and "slippery floor" boards propped up. ;-)You have a plastic-cover dispenser for your umbrellas.
There's hardly a soul around who is wet enough to testify the rains outside!

When I finally reach my desk in the office, I think of a(n) (average .. not the hell raising kinda rainy) rainy day in India. You leave with a raincoat / umbrella, which hardly helps. By the time you get into the bus, your feet are wet and pink. The umbrella is dripping with water. You avoid a window seat because water trickles on the seat. People in the bus avoid you because they don't want a wet cat next to them. :-)

You look out on the road, and there are vehicles shining bright with the unpaid-uncalled-for wash they'd just had. They whoosh through puddles of water.
Tiny raincoat clad figures tow with their hurrying parents.
Mummy-types ladies gently lift their sarees a a wee bit to avoid them from sloshing in the puddles, and balance an office bag at the shoulder.
Cycle-wallas with colorful polythene bags covering their heads and tucked behind their ears, appear to be floating on the waters.
Police-mamas with bright yellow raincoats try to make sense out of the mad traffic.
A scooter which refuses to start is cursed and kicked by its owner.
Youngsters don't give a damn to the rains and soak up.
A few shivering souls wait at covered bus stops, under trees, in front of shops.
A few crows shake themselves free of water every few mins on the cables running overhead.
Pavements are shining, trees have a new shade of green...
It seems like there is a different world attached with each of this scene. The city is so alive!

As you shiver with the cool breeze, you look forward to reaching home, to a steaming cup of tea, you look forward to tucking your feet underneath you and curling up in the sofa, discussing mundane stuff with family as everyone arrives home one by one with a different rain that soaked them up! :-)

As the warm picture of a family returning home floats in your mind, there is a lump in your throat and you actually long to get drenched in that rain that falls in India!