A walk in the rain – What an experience!! – Part 2

It was light but really steady drizzle as I stepped out of office for my usual 40 minute walk back to the hotel. As I strode through Leaden Hall Road and Fenchurch Street, where my offices are located, you could see an array of umbrella’s, different sizes, shapes and colours. But that’s not the experience am speaking about. I just stood back for a second to look at all the sky scrapers in the vicinity and to my amusement; all of them were visible to their half only, as the rest were covered by a misty whiteness which had engulfed them. It was a sight not to be missed. As I enjoyed the view, it was time to move on, because you never know how the English weather would change. It could just turn into a downpour and I would be stranded in the middle of no where.

As I strode through the usual route, the walk towards Tower Hill Underground station and past it onto the Tower Bridge, I felt the same experience of that of Mumbai. The Londoners were striding at their usual pace, irrespective of the rain. Trust me; these guys walk really fast, compared to me. By the time I reached the tower bridge, my pant’s were beginning to get wet from the bottom and my suit was wet from behind already. Luckily because of the suit, I was still not feeling the real chill.

The walk on the tower bridge is awesome. On a normal day, you could see loads of people from different countries, background, ethnicity, colour etc. standing on it, admiring the Thames, clicking pictures, hugging each other, kissing and you can really feel a sense of romance and unconditional love around you. A feeling of being human and for a few minutes not worrying about the world you need to get back into, would clearly hit you when you focus on how these people relate to the others with them or the environment around them is at that very point. But today as it was raining, the normal bustle was missing and it was only the commuters trying to get back from work.

As I was walking, I looked at the Thames, it was truly a grand spectacle, that only nature can throw up at you. Half of the river was covered by mist, a light mixture of white and grey carpeting the Cruise Lines and HMS Belfast the World War II ship anchored on the river. The buildings in the background and London Bridge felt a mere existence to what nature had portrayed on the canvas called the ‘River Thames’. It’s one of those memories that would last for long in my mind and probably a story to tell my Grand children – that if I remember it till then. This picturesque visual attracts you to just stand there and keep admiring it, but when there are a few more heavy drops on your umbrella, you have to get of this wonder view, which certainly is dreamlike to proceed my walk to the hotel.

As all good things have to come to an end, so does my walk in the rain, only to settle in the warmth of my hotel room.

Truly a WOW experience.

A walk in the rain – What an experience!! – Part 1

It’s been raining the last three days in London and it’s that type of English rain, a relentless drizzle. While walking back home it just struck me, that I really have not enjoyed rain, nature at one of its best. Its not nature’s fury but one of those beautiful little things that nature offer’s you and we being so caught up in our lives don’t even have the slightest inclination to see it, leave alone, enjoying it. As this thought occurred to me, I started relating to the experience of how it feels being in the rain.

I ran the tortoise mosquito coil, to rewind my years in life to check within me, whether I have really experienced rain and it really hit me then, to notice that the answer was a definite NO. It really was reality check of sorts.

When I was young, rain meant, no school and sitting at home and that was the delight rain bought me. Probably I would have ventured a few times, to try a paper boat on the flowing water on the roads, or loved to kick the water out of the balcony in my house. We used to live on the first floor of a house and when it would rain, water would get accumulated in the balcony and you had to push it down to the ground floor to clear the balcony and I remember having fun kicking the water down. Another clear remembrance is how the rain would play spoil sport during Diwali. As a kid, I would have begged for a few tens or hundreds of Rupees from my parents to buy those crackers for diwali and exactly on diwali it would pour, just to sour your childishness, that of bursting crackers.

The next thought of rain surely is college days and in those 3 years there was more rain than I have experienced in Chennai. As guys we would love to go to college during those days, because we knew enough water would have entered the college gates for them to declare the evening off (I was in evening college). Then it would be party time, having that wonderful masala vada and chai at Nair’s tea shop near college or going to Besant Nagar beach in the rain and waiting for it to stop to eat really hot fried rice on the road side. Wow!, those days were great, it was the Summer of 96. By end of this fantastic experience you would be soaking wet, even if you were wearing a duckbag rain coat.

The other only experience of rain was when I was in Mumbai and I was startled and amazed as how the city continued to move on, in its own rapid speed irrespective of the mighty Mumbai monsoon. One certain experience was of getting a Dominos Pizza delivered in pouring rain in less than an hour, that too from Malad to Goregoan. But all these experiences were not life altering till the one I experienced last evening.

To be continued in part two.