Rain.

The air cools down rapidly and the earthly petrichor brings waves of nostalgia. The roads, that have turned into a darker shade of grey, reflect the street lights and headlights and shine all the way. Every time tires cut through the puddles, small splashes make the pedestrians’ shoes soggy.  Curses and screams rally over the roads, muffled under the sound of car horns and the steady pour. The footpath floods with umbrellas and two wheeler drivers line beneath the large trees to stay dry.
After a long wait, months of drought, Pune greets rain.

It isn't raining cats and dogs. It's rather raining butterflies, which makes it even more beautiful. I look at the road, all the vehicles lined up round the crossroads. Their wipers sway continuously and for a long time, I gawk at them, lost. I forget everything else as I gaze at the windscreens. The rain drops fall, gracefully and then race down to the bottom. All of a sudden, I am a little girl again, cheering the drops to victory, guessing which one will reach the bonnet first.
Sitting in my very own paper boat, sailing with my best friend through an angry sea, I laugh. With play swords in our hands, we challenge the other paper boats and race to the shore, very much like the raindrops. As I come out of my ship, all wet, tired and covered in mud, it magically turns back into a paper boat, the shore, into a pavement. The sea that merged into the sky is now just a titchy puddle.

Drenched in the rain, we walk back home and promise each other to come back in a jiffy. I dash home and change into a fresh, dry pair of clothes, collect some food-sandwiches, chocolates and steaming hot onion bhajis and sprint downstairs. She arrives a second later with two cups of hot chocolate and napkins. A silent agreement passes and we walk to our favourite spot, together without a word. We wriggle through a hole in the wall. On the other side, we see our tree. It’s been there ever since we were born. We keep our stuff on a branch that is quiet high, but offers a really comfortable and veiled place to sit. The groove is just right for everything we need. We climb the tree and rest comfortably on the damp branch, enjoying our hot chocolate and sandwiches.
I love the tree. It is our secret place and I remember how proud we were the day we found it. It was ages ago. Now, we’ve grown up.

As my thoughts wander through the nostalgia streets, I don’t realise that I’ve been staring, rather curiously at the windscreens. My friend snaps her fingers, right in front of my face and I’m pulled back, rather unwillingly, to the present. The rain is still pouring and now all I want to do is go down and without a worry in the world, play in the rain. So, that’s what I do.

As the drops splatter over my face, joy rushes through my body. I am cold, very but that just makes me even more zippy. It isn’t rainy season unless it has rained and well, here it is, rain.
The beginning of months of joy, mom’s "Don’t get wet, you’ll catch a cold" and "no pani puri from the hawker round the corner from now.", headlines all about rain and storms, traffic jams and chaos, hoping it rains plenty for the school to give us a holiday, playing football, barefoot in the rain, the joy of the fields and nectar of all, the festival of paper boats, here comes Rain.