Amaya Rao
Part 1: Under the Metro Roof
The rain arrived like a rumor that suddenly remembered it was true. One minute Delhi was gray and heavy with threat; the next, it cracked open and poured everything it had onto Rajiv Chowk. The metro announcement dissolved into static. Commuters shrank under bags and newspapers and dignity. Somewhere above, a billboard for a weekend sale sagged, the model’s perfect smile beaded with water like perspiration she couldn’t admit to. Aanya stood just inside the station entrance and felt the rain push its fingers toward her toes. She drew them back, as if the flood might tug her away, as if she were a loose end the city had been waiting to unravel.
“Blue Line services are delayed due to waterlogging on the tracks,” the speaker declared, a polite way of saying we’ve all surrendered to the sky.
Aanya hated the monsoon. She hated the way her sandals made that damp kiss against her heels, hated the way traffic became a philosophy debate—should we move, can we move, why do we move—hated the way the air smelled like wet concrete trying to convince her it was romantic. She wrote jingles for an advertising firm, clever sentences that sparkled for six seconds and died. On good days she called herself a copywriter; on bad days she called herself a typist. Today, with the rain smearing the city into watercolor, she felt like an extra in someone else’s scene.
But she had her journal in her tote, the one with the frayed spine and the rain-darkened corners where old storms had licked it. During monsoon, words came to her like drips from a leaky ceiling—irregular, inescapable, a little menacing. She slid it out and touched the cover, as if to check its pulse.
“Chai?” a voice asked, close enough to be heard but far enough to be refused.
She looked up. He was holding out a paper cup that steamed as if it were trying to think for them both. He wore a rain-dark shirt the color of fresh asphalt and had hair that the weather had already negotiated with. There was sincerity in the way he offered the cup, like he believed tea could fix the planetary tilt by two degrees.
“No, thanks,” she said, because Delhi taught you early that kindness could be an invoice.
He smiled without insisting and lifted the cup to his own lips. “Fair. But you should know this is the second-best chai outside this station. The best one’s outside Gate 6, but that side is a river right now.”
She glanced past him at the curtain of rain. The chaiwala’s stall looked like a ship refusing to sink, and the man himself was stirring the brew with a patience that felt like a prayer. Aanya considered the contract between strangers, then broke her own rule. “You really have a ranking system?”
He nodded. “I work in flood control. We keep lists of everything. Drains, pumps, tea.” He swallowed. “Vihaan.”
“Aanya,” she answered, and took the tiniest step closer to the smell of cardamom.
“Copywriter?” he asked, not because she wore it but because sometimes fatigue has a uniform. She raised an eyebrow. “My sister’s in advertising,” he said quickly. “I recognize the thousand-yard stare.”
“With you it’s… sluice gates and tide tables?” she said, hearing the tease in her voice and deciding not to apologize for it.
“Najafgarh drain, Yamuna floodplain, and software that never loads when it’s raining,” he said, as if reciting a weary haiku. “On paper, we make sure water knows where to go.”
A bus outside coughed, then surrendered. A police whistle tried to organize chaos and became part of it. Inside, people were inventing little shelters: a sari turned tent, a backpack as a roof, a hand as a harbor for a phone screen. Aanya realized she was still here, still listening.
“So, why the second-best chai?” she asked.
“The best chai requires wading,” he said. “I have meetings after this and I draw the line at trousers that squelch.”
She laughed despite herself. It wasn’t the laughter that announces interest; it was the kind that admits fatigue is lighter when shared. He noticed the journal in her hand. “Write?” he ventured.
“Sometimes.” She half closed it, thumb marking a page she didn’t want a stranger’s weather to blow open. “Rain poems. Bad ones.”
“Rain is generous. It makes even bad poems feel like diaries,” he said, then flinched. “Sorry, that sounded like a poster.”
“It did,” she said, and found the edges of a smile she hadn’t planned to wear today.
The speaker crackled again. “Trains are delayed by approximately—” and then drowned in applause from the thunder. The floor vibrated like the city’s throat clearing. Outside, the curb disappeared under a brown stream the color of impatience.
Aanya looked at Vihaan’s shirt again—it had dried in patterns, like a map of a country neither of them had visited. He offered the cup once more, not as charity but as a bridge. She took it. Ginger bit her tongue in a way that made her eyes want to close. Sugar leaped, milk rounded, cardamom threaded—a whole story in a paper cup.
“Okay,” she said, surrendering a little to the warm. “Second-best is excellent.”
“Don’t let it hear you say that,” he said.
They stood together, not touching, not turning into anything, simply occupying the same pause in the city’s sentence. He talked about an underpass that always flooded because of a small error in a slope that nobody wanted to own. She talked about an insurance ad that sold safety by making uncertainty look photogenic. He described a pump that would save a colony if only a contractor stopped treating deadlines like hypothetical. She described a tagline that worked only after the client decided their fear was a feature. Their worlds overlapped in the diagram of things that were fixable if the right person cared at the right time.
“Do you like the rain?” he asked.
Aanya opened her mouth to say no, the way you say you don’t like coriander or crowded elevators. “I like what it does to smells,” she said instead. “The way the city remembers being soil.”
He nodded like someone making a note. “I like the way it dignifies imperfections,” he said. “All the stains and cracks and stubborn weeds—they stop pretending.”
She didn’t answer. The truth was she didn’t like the memories rain insisted on—how a breakup could be recast as a scene because there were droplets on a windshield and a sentence that started with “Listen.” The truth was love, like rain, arrived on its own schedule and left behind damp things that took forever to dry. But she liked listening to someone who talked as if problems were puzzles, not curses.
A child skipped past them in shoes that were more puddle than leather. The mother followed, half scolding, half laughing, her dupatta a flag of surrender to the weather. Vihaan’s phone buzzed and he glanced down, thumb hovering above a message he probably didn’t want to read.
“Duty?” Aanya asked.
He sighed. “A site inspection. If the pumps fail, the road outside turns into a canal and Twitter eats us alive.”
“Go,” she said, surprising herself with the flick of disappointment. He took a step, then another, then turned back.
“Gate 3 is the quicker exit today,” he said, pointing. “The sidewalk keeps a little ridge. If you walk on the left of the yellow line, your shoes might stay dry. Also—there’s a seller near the Hanuman statue who makes pakoras that forgive a lot.”
“So you do fieldwork in taste as well,” she said.
He scratched his cheek, the shy gesture of someone asking for something without asking. “If the trains are still sulking later… I’ll be back around six. I mean, if you’re around,” he added, embarrassed by his own ordinary hope.
She pretended to check the time. It was only four, but the sky made it feel like evening had already voted to leave early. She thought about the copy deck awaiting her, the “urgent” edits that changed nothing. She thought about the word she had written in her journal that morning—hollow—and how the day had filled it a little without asking permission.
“Maybe,” she said, letting the word be both door and curtain.
He nodded, the smallest smile hitching like a kite finding wind. Then he slipped into the human river, the kind that knows how to part around obstacles without losing its course. Aanya watched him go, feeling the shape of the scene settle inside her: girl, rain, station, stranger with practical hands and impractical kindness.
The loudspeaker tried again: “Blue Line services—” and this time finished the sentence. Trains would inch, delays would shrink, people would remember the choreography of daily movement. Aanya looked at the exit he’d pointed out, at the slant of the floor, at her own feet. She opened her journal and wrote one line, fast, before language could get in the way: Today the city let the sky do the talking.
She tucked the journal back, cradled the empty cup, and stepped toward Gate 3, to test a stranger’s map against a storm’s mood. The rain answered by softening, as if amused. Outside, the world smelled like fried batter and wet stone and the courage of commuters. Aanya pulled her dupatta closer, and somewhere in the wide throat of Connaught Place, a pump started, an engine offered its dependable hum, and Delhi—ridiculous, relentless, beloved—remembered how to move again.
At six, if the rain kept its promise to be itself, she might come back. Or she might not. That was the thing about monsoon: choice and chance wore the same perfume.
Part 2: Parade of Umbrellas
By evening, Connaught Place looked like someone had tipped over a tray of umbrellas and let them march on their own. Red, black, polka-dotted, translucent plastic, all bobbing along the inner circle as if choreographed by the rain. Aanya watched them from under the Hanuman statue, clutching a paper packet of pakoras she had almost not bought. The oil glistened, the besan clung to her fingers, and the city clung to its chaos with the loyalty of an old friend. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She had promised herself she would head straight home, finish the insurance tagline her boss kept chewing on like cud, and let today remain what it was: an accident. But the word maybe had worked like a seed inside her, sprouting curiosity each time she glanced at the clock. So here she was, watching umbrellas parade by, trying to look as if she always stood here in the rain waiting for nothing.
At 6:05, she spotted him. Not because he was taller than most, but because he walked like he trusted the ground not to betray him. Vihaan had swapped his asphalt shirt for something pale blue, already stained darker at the shoulders. He carried no umbrella, just a folder under one arm that looked like it had been through its own storm. He caught her eye almost instantly and smiled with the relieved surprise of someone who had half-believed she wouldn’t come.
“You made it,” he said, stepping under the small stretch of dry pavement where she sheltered. His hair carried the rain like punctuation marks.
“I was hungry,” she said, raising the pakora packet as proof.
“That’s the only reason people survive Delhi monsoon,” he replied. “Fried food and reckless optimism.”
She offered him one without ceremony. He took it, bit into the crunch, and sighed like a man who had returned to the country of his childhood. “Perfect,” he said through the steam.
For a few moments, they ate in companionable silence while the crowd shuffled by, each umbrella opening like a secret, closing like a confession. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but puddles had already claimed the curbs. A street dog shook itself and sent tiny comets of water onto Aanya’s dupatta. She laughed and wiped it off.
“Did the pumps behave?” she asked.
“Mostly,” he said, chewing. “One collapsed near Pragati Maidan. A politician’s car got stuck. Suddenly half the city cared.”
“And the other half?”
“They laughed on social media,” he said with a shrug. “That’s Delhi. We fix drains, they fix hashtags.”
His words were dry, but his tone wasn’t bitter. It was as if he accepted the absurdity as part of the job description. Aanya found herself watching his face longer than necessary, the way his eyebrows lifted when he tried to soften the frustration, the way his smile returned quickly like a light that refused to stay off.
“You always wait for strangers in the rain?” she asked, trying to sound casual.
“Only when the stranger looks like she might actually hate the rain more than I do paperwork,” he said.
She raised an eyebrow. “That obvious?”
He nodded. “But also—maybe not true. I think you’re pretending.”
“Pretending what?”
“That you don’t like what the rain forces you to notice,” he said, pointing at her journal peeking from her bag.
She tucked it in deeper, defensive. “And you? Do you pretend you love it because it keeps you employed?”
“Maybe,” he admitted. “But it’s also the only time Delhi feels honest. Summer is a lie, winter is vanity, spring doesn’t exist. Rain is the city saying, Take me as I am.”
She couldn’t argue. The drizzle thickened again, drumming softly on tin awnings. Vendors pulled plastic sheets over carts. A man sold cheap raincoats in neon greens and yellows, holding them up like carnival prizes. Aanya and Vihaan moved closer to avoid a splash from a passing rickshaw. Their shoulders brushed. Neither stepped away.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“Lajpat Nagar. You?”
“Rohini,” he said. “Opposite ends of the map. The city doesn’t make it easy.”
Aanya felt the weight of his words, heavier than the rain. She thought of her ex who had lived fifteen minutes away yet always felt unreachable. Distance was rarely geography.
The rain thickened once more, a final rehearsal before full performance. People hurried, umbrellas collided, curses and apologies blended. Vihaan held out his folder like a ridiculous shield above them. She laughed. “That’s not going to help.”
“Second-best option,” he said.
“Like your chai rankings?”
“Exactly,” he grinned. “And maybe the rain deserves some competition.”
They ran, darting between umbrellas, splashing into puddles, dodging horns. By the time they ducked into the archway of a shuttered bookstore, they were both wet enough to stop caring. A ceiling fan hung above them, motionless, like a witness. The city outside blurred behind a curtain of water.
Aanya pressed her journal to her chest to keep it dry. Vihaan noticed. “You really guard it,” he said softly.
“It’s the only thing that still listens,” she murmured.
“Then maybe one day you’ll let me listen too.”
She met his eyes, rain trickling down his temple, and for the first time in a long time, she didn’t look away. Something unspoken stretched between them, fragile as wet paper, but strong enough to resist tearing for now.
The downpour softened again, leaving the smell of earth and diesel behind. People began emerging, shaking themselves off, ready to resume their rehearsed lives. Vihaan checked his watch. “I should go. Site reports don’t read themselves.”
“Go, engineer,” she said lightly, though part of her wished he’d stay.
He took a step out, then turned back. “Same place tomorrow? Around this time?”
She hesitated, just long enough for him to think she’d refuse. Then she nodded. “Maybe.”
He smiled, not triumphant, just grateful. Then he disappeared into the umbrella parade, leaving her under the archway with pakora grease on her fingers, a damp journal, and a heart that felt as though the city had finally written her into its script.
Aanya stood there for a while, listening to Delhi breathe after the rain. She knew this could be nothing. She knew she had been wrong before. And yet, as she scribbled into her journal before heading home, the line wrote itself: Sometimes strangers arrive like weather forecasts you don’t believe until you’re drenched.
Part 3: Lodhi After the Rain
The morning after, Delhi looked like it had been scrubbed overnight. Potholes still yawned, billboards still sagged, traffic still fumed, but the light had a clarity that didn’t belong to this city. It slid across car bonnets like silver, sparkled on wet leaves, turned puddles into mirrors that showed pieces of the sky. Aanya had promised herself she wouldn’t keep a stranger’s appointment. Work was piled high—taglines for life insurance, edits for shampoo campaigns, and a client meeting that threatened to stretch into evening. But the word maybe had once again betrayed her. So at six, she was not in her office polishing words no one cared about; she was walking toward Lodhi Gardens with her journal tucked into her tote.
Vihaan had suggested it casually in a message he sent around noon: Rain or shine, Lodhi looks better at dusk. I’ll be there. She’d stared at it for too long, telling herself she wouldn’t answer. She didn’t. But here she was, following the curve of the gravel path as if her feet had voted without her.
The garden shimmered with leftovers of the storm. Grass carried beads of water like ornaments, and the ancient tombs stood dark and damp, their walls breathing out centuries of rain. Pigeons cooed from nooks, and couples with umbrellas leaned against stone, whispering their temporary forever promises. Aanya spotted him near the Sheesh Gumbad, standing with his hands in his pockets, looking like someone who had been raised on patience.
“You came,” he said simply, no triumph in his voice, only relief.
“Only because the rain stopped,” she replied, though both of them knew that wasn’t true.
He began walking, and she fell into step beside him. Their pace matched without effort. The garden was full of smells: wet soil, cut grass, roasted corn from a vendor at the gate, the faint perfume of some flower stubborn enough to bloom in August.
“Do you ever notice,” Vihaan said, “that old stone always looks happiest in rain? Like it remembers being clay.”
“You talk as if the city is alive,” she said.
“It is. It sulks, it lies, it forgives. And sometimes, if you listen, it tells you what it needs.”
She shook her head, smiling. “You sound like my grandmother.”
“Wise woman?”
“Or very tired of excuses,” Aanya said, thinking of her nani who scolded the city daily as if it were a grandson who had lost his manners.
They stopped near a puddle that reflected the dome above them. A child ran through it, scattering geometry into chaos. Aanya laughed, the sound escaping before she could cage it. Vihaan watched her, not the puddle.
“What do you write?” he asked, gesturing toward her bag.
“Nothing important.”
“Important enough to guard.”
She hesitated. Then, with the recklessness the rain sometimes leaves behind, she pulled out her journal and opened it to a page she had written the night before. The ink was smudged at the edges, the words crooked. She held it out.
Today the city let the sky do the talking.
He read it once, then again, lips moving silently. “That’s beautiful,” he said.
“It’s obvious,” she muttered, embarrassed.
“Obvious is underrated,” he replied. “Engineers spend their lives chasing obvious things: water flows downhill, pumps need power, cement cracks. But saying it simply doesn’t make it less true.”
She felt heat rise to her cheeks, though the evening was cool. She snatched the journal back, tucking it away before he could see the other confessions scattered in ink.
They wandered deeper into the garden. The trees here grew thick, roots tangled like stories no one had time to untangle. Birds shouted from branches. Somewhere a couple argued in hushed tones, their umbrella lying forgotten on the grass. Vihaan pointed at the dome of Bara Gumbad, rain-dark and massive. “When you stand under that arch, your voice comes back to you twice. It doesn’t echo, it insists.”
“Have you tried?”
He nodded. “During college. I shouted my exam schedule into it. Sounded like a threat.”
She laughed again, and this time it startled her how easily the sound found him.
They reached the steps of the tomb. The stone was slick, and Aanya hesitated. He offered his hand without thinking. She looked at it, at his long fingers streaked faintly with mud, and for a moment considered refusing. But then she placed her palm in his, light, tentative. His grip was steady, warm despite the rain. He helped her up, then let go almost immediately, as if respecting boundaries even while crossing them.
Inside, the chamber smelled of damp stone and history. Their footsteps echoed, mingling with distant laughter. She tilted her head up to see the carvings blurred by moss.
“You like this city too much,” she said softly.
“Maybe I need to,” he replied. “If I don’t, who will fight for it when it drowns?”
She turned to him. In the half-light, his face was serious, almost tired. He carried his work in his eyes, the endless battle against a river that forgot to stay polite, a city that refused to learn. She wanted to ask him why he chose this, why he stayed, why he didn’t run to some cleaner city. Instead she said, “You sound like a hero.”
“I’m just someone who hates wet shoes less than most,” he smiled, breaking the weight of his own words.
They sat on the stone steps, watching the drizzle begin again. Drops drummed against the arch, steady and patient. Aanya pulled her dupatta tighter. He sat close, not touching, but near enough that she felt the warmth of him against the damp air.
“Tell me something true,” he said suddenly.
She thought for a moment. Then: “I’m tired of writing words that don’t matter.”
He nodded, as if that wasn’t strange at all. “Then write ones that do.”
“And if no one reads them?”
He glanced at her bag. “You already do. That’s enough.”
The drizzle thickened, people scurried, the garden began to empty. Aanya realized time had folded itself around them, quiet and elastic. She stood reluctantly. “I should go. Deadlines wait even if drains don’t.”
He rose too. “I’ll walk you out.”
They moved together toward the gate, steps unhurried, rain softening into mist around them. At the exit, traffic roared, impatient and relieved. They paused.
“Tomorrow?” he asked, not hiding the hope.
She should have said no. She should have remembered how quickly strangers become mistakes. But the word slipped out, soft and inevitable. “Maybe.”
He smiled, the kind of smile that believed in weather turning. And as she stepped into an auto, clutching her damp journal, Delhi exhaled the smell of wet earth, as if the city itself wanted her to come back.
Part 4: Steps of Jama Masjid
The rain that evening was not a drizzle, not a downpour, but something in between—the kind that carried the city in its palm and refused to let go. Old Delhi pulsed with its usual contradictions: rickshaws jostled like quarrelsome cousins, wires sagged dangerously with droplets, kebab smoke curled upward to argue with the clouds. Aanya arrived at Jama Masjid almost against her own will. She had told herself the third meeting was too much, that maybe was turning into yes without her permission. Yet her feet had carried her from the metro, through gullies sticky with rainwater and spices, until the mosque loomed above her—red sandstone darkened by monsoon, domes glistening, minarets piercing a stormy sky.
Vihaan was waiting on the steps, shoes in hand, trousers folded, hair wet and unbothered. When he saw her, his face broke into a smile so ordinary, so relieved, that it dissolved her rehearsed reluctance.
“You found it,” he said.
“It’s not exactly hidden,” she replied, climbing the slick steps carefully.
“True, but in rain Old Delhi can swallow even monuments whole.”
They entered the courtyard. The marble floor shimmered with puddles, reflections of domes trembling with each raindrop. People moved about—tourists under umbrellas, worshippers hurrying to prayer, children sliding on wet stone until scolded. The call to maghrib prayer rose, long and deep, echoing against thunder. Aanya paused, the sound seeping into her bones.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Vihaan murmured.
She nodded, unable to frame it with words. She wasn’t religious, not anymore, but something about voices lifted into rain made her throat ache.
They sat on the wide steps that overlooked the bazaar below. Lanterns flickered to life in dripping stalls. The smell of grilled meat, fried bread, and wet cloth floated upward. Vihaan bought two paper plates of seekh kebabs from a vendor and handed one to her.
“This is the city’s real resilience,” he said, gesturing to the glowing stalls despite the storm.
Aanya bit into the kebab. Spice and smoke filled her mouth, chased by lemon. She closed her eyes. “Okay,” she admitted. “Maybe rain isn’t always the enemy.”
He laughed softly. “Progress.”
They ate in silence for a while, watching people navigate the bazaar. An old man carried umbrellas balanced like a bouquet. A young boy splashed barefoot, his laughter competing with thunder. Lovers huddled beneath single shawls. The city looked drenched but alive, like a stubborn actor refusing to leave stage.
“Do you ever think of leaving?” she asked suddenly.
“Delhi?”
“Yes. This madness. This… flood you’re always trying to control.”
He chewed thoughtfully. “Every year during peak monsoon, I think about it. And then every year, when the city dries, I realize I’d miss the fight. It’s like family—you curse it, but you stay.”
She studied his face in the lantern glow, the seriousness beneath his casual words. “And what if someone asked you to choose differently?”
He turned toward her. “Are you asking?”
She flushed, looking away. “No. Just curious.”
He didn’t press. Instead, he pointed at the skyline. “Look at that dome—water slides off it no matter how heavy the rain. Perfect slope, centuries old. Sometimes I think the old builders knew more than we ever will.”
“You make engineering sound poetic,” she said.
“And you make poetry sound like survival,” he countered.
Aanya hugged her journal closer, embarrassed at how transparent he made her feel. But she couldn’t deny the comfort of his words.
The rain thickened, drums on the domes, rivers down the steps. They pressed closer beneath the archway. A drop fell from the ceiling straight onto her nose. She laughed, wiping it away. He watched her laugh like it was the only dry thing in the city.
“Tell me something true,” he said again.
She hesitated. Then: “My last relationship ended in the rain. A fight in a car, windshield wipers thrashing like angry arms. Since then, every downpour has felt like a reminder.”
He was quiet. Finally, he said, “Maybe this season can rewrite that memory.”
Her throat tightened. She wanted to argue, but the storm swallowed her protest. Somewhere below, a lightning strike silenced the bazaar for an instant. When sound returned, it was louder, more insistent.
“Your turn,” she said.
He stared into the rain. “My transfer letter came last week. Assam project. Two years. I’ve been pretending it isn’t real.”
The words hit her like a gust. She opened her mouth, closed it. The kebabs cooled between them.
“So this…” she began, then trailed off.
“Doesn’t have to end,” he said quickly, almost too quickly. “But I didn’t want to hide it from you.”
She looked at him—at the rain on his eyelashes, at the determination etched in his jaw. She wanted to tell him she barely knew him, that maybe was too fragile to fight distance. But the city around her—chaotic, soaked, stubborn—seemed to laugh at the idea of logic.
She exhaled. “Then let’s not think about tomorrow. Just today.”
He nodded, grateful. Together they sat as the call to prayer echoed again, thunder answering, rain clapping, the city humming its eternal duet. And for a brief moment, Aanya felt that perhaps rain wasn’t about endings at all, but about beginnings disguised as storms.
Part 5: Chandni Chowk Detour
By the time they left Jama Masjid, the rain had settled into a steady curtain, not ferocious but determined to soak every corner of Old Delhi. The bazaar below glowed with rain-smeared lights. Rickshaws honked in desperation, scooters hissed through puddles, and the gullies narrowed with every umbrella that tried to squeeze through. Aanya tugged her dupatta close, though it was already damp beyond rescue. Vihaan gestured toward the main road. “Straight ahead for the metro.”
She nodded, then noticed the crowd pressed shoulder to shoulder, umbrellas colliding, tempers snapping. A vendor shouted about waterproof phone covers, another about roasted corn. Somewhere a loudspeaker advertised a discount on silver anklets. It was impossible to move without surrendering to the crush.
“Shortcut,” Vihaan said, and without waiting, ducked into a side lane barely wide enough for two people. Aanya followed reluctantly, clutching her bag. The lane smelled of wet spices and history—cumin, coriander, cardamom leaking from half-shuttered shops, old bricks weeping rain. Water trickled along the uneven path, reflecting string lights that someone hadn’t bothered to switch off despite the downpour.
“Do you know where this goes?” she asked, stepping carefully to avoid a pothole that looked more like a well.
“Of course,” he said, though his grin betrayed the thrill of improvisation. “Every lane here goes somewhere. That’s the beauty of Chandni Chowk.”
“Or the trap,” she muttered.
He laughed, and the sound bounced off the wet walls, startling a stray cat that darted past them. They walked in near silence, their shoulders brushing occasionally, each accidental touch louder than the thunder overhead.
A sudden surge of water came rushing down the gully—some clogged drain giving up its fight. Aanya yelped as the muddy stream lapped at her ankles. Vihaan grabbed her wrist and pulled her onto a raised step outside a shuttered shop. For a moment they stood pressed together, bodies too close, rain hammering the tin roof above. His hand lingered around her wrist, steadying her even after the danger had passed.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
She nodded, though her heart was thudding harder than the rain. His proximity unsettled her, not in fear but in recognition. The kind of recognition she had tried to avoid since her last heartbreak. She pulled her hand free gently. “I hate this city sometimes,” she said, her voice sharper than intended.
He didn’t flinch. “And yet you stay.”
“Because leaving isn’t easy.”
“Staying isn’t either.”
Their eyes met, an argument without words. She looked away first, watching a group of children run barefoot through the lane, laughing as if the flood were a carnival.
They resumed walking. The lane twisted, opening into a smaller bazaar still alive despite the weather. Shops selling glass bangles sparkled under weak bulbs, tea stalls hissed with steam, the air thick with samosa oil and wet dust. Vihaan stopped at one stall, ordering two clay cups of masala chai. He handed one to her. The steam fogged her glasses, forcing her to remove them, and the world blurred into watercolor. She sipped. Cinnamon and ginger burned pleasantly down her throat.
“This,” she admitted, “is worth the detour.”
“Told you,” he said, pleased.
They lingered there, sipping, while people jostled around them. A couple argued over the price of bangles, a man sold plastic raincoats, a beggar child sang an old filmi song in exchange for coins. It was messy, chaotic, alive. Aanya realized she hadn’t laughed this much in months.
When the cups were empty, Vihaan guided her further. The lane narrowed again, then suddenly opened into a small square where rainwater had collected, turning the cobblestones into a shallow pool. A group of teenagers were splashing each other, shouting, their laughter rising above the storm. One of them accidentally sprayed water toward Aanya, drenching the hem of her salwar. She gasped.
Vihaan chuckled. “Delhi baptizes everyone eventually.”
“You sound like you enjoy my misery,” she said, half annoyed, half amused.
“Only because you look less like someone running away and more like someone alive,” he replied without hesitation.
The words hit her like a spark. She froze, staring at him. He seemed to realize the weight of what he had said, because he quickly looked away, clearing his throat. “Come on, metro’s this way.”
They walked the last stretch in silence, both aware of what had almost been confessed. The bazaar thinned, replaced by larger roads buzzing with honking traffic. Neon signs flickered through the rain. The metro entrance loomed ahead, a promise of shelter.
At the stairs, they stopped. The crowd surged around them, umbrellas dripping, commuters rushing, but it felt as if they stood in a pocket of stillness.
“Thank you,” Aanya said finally.
“For what?”
“For… shortcuts. And chai. And not making the rain unbearable.”
He smiled faintly. “That’s a good review. Better than my site reports.”
They lingered, neither moving toward the stairs. Finally, he said, “Tomorrow?”
She hesitated, as always. But this time, the word came easier, softer. “Maybe.”
He nodded, not pushing. She descended into the metro’s fluorescent glow, the roar of trains mixing with echoes of rain above. As she swiped her card and entered the platform, she realized her journal was burning to be opened. Later that night, at her desk, she wrote:
In the flood’s maze, I found a stranger’s hand steadier than the ground beneath me.
And when she closed the journal, she allowed herself to whisper the word she never trusted: almost.
Part 6: Blackout Dinner
The week’s rain refused to pause, as if Delhi had angered the sky and the punishment was endless. By Thursday, the city groaned under swollen drains and traffic that crawled like a wounded animal. Aanya spent her afternoon drafting yet another campaign for insurance—“secure your tomorrows”—while thunder cracked outside, mocking her words. The power flickered twice in the office before finally dying, computers sighing into silence. The emergency generator sputtered, failed. Colleagues packed up early, muttering about waterlogging.
When she reached home in Lajpat Nagar, the blackout had already stretched across the neighborhood. Streetlights were off, traffic signals reduced to frantic whistles of exhausted policemen. Inside her flat, ceiling fans hung still, and her room smelled of wet clothes and frustration. She lit a candle, its flame trembling against the damp air. The silence pressed on her ears.
Her phone buzzed. A message from Vihaan: Power’s out everywhere. Hungry?
She hesitated. She should say no. She should curl into bed and let the darkness pass. But the candlelight flickered on her journal, open to the page where she had scribbled about his hand steadying hers in Chandni Chowk. Her fingers typed before her mind decided: Where?
Twenty minutes later, she found herself standing outside a modest restaurant tucked in a South Delhi lane. The board above the door glowed weakly on battery backup. Inside, most tables were dark except for candles placed in glass tumblers. Couples and families leaned close, their faces lit like secrets. The air was thick with the smell of butter naan, grilled paneer, rain-damp hair.
Vihaan waved from a corner table. A single candle burned between them, its light softening his face. He looked different outside rain—less like a rescuer, more like a man who might be vulnerable too.
“You came,” he said.
“Couldn’t cook in the dark,” she replied, sliding into the chair.
“Lucky me then,” he said with a half-smile.
They ordered simple food—dal, naan, aloo gobi. The waiter brought water in steel tumblers that clinked softly. Outside, rain tapped at the windows like a persistent guest.
“So this is your idea of romance?” she teased.
“This is Delhi’s idea of efficiency,” he countered. “Blackouts force intimacy.”
She laughed, surprising herself at how easily it came in his company. The candle sputtered and recovered. Shadows danced across the wall behind him.
They ate slowly, talking between bites. She told him about her college days in JNU, how she once wrote a play about rain that nobody understood. He told her about interning in Assam during floods, how a family offered him tea in a house half underwater. They shared stories of Delhi’s absurdities—rickshaws that charged more during drizzle, auto drivers who believed tarpaulin could replace physics, bosses who demanded deadlines even when Wi-Fi drowned.
Halfway through the meal, the rain thickened, drumming on the tin roof so loudly that conversation paused. Aanya watched water trickle down the window, candlelight blurring through it. Vihaan leaned back, arms crossed, studying her face the way engineers study blueprints: carefully, with intention.
“What?” she asked, self-conscious.
“You look different in candlelight,” he said. “Less guarded. Like you’re not bracing for the city to disappoint you.”
She frowned, though her heart skipped. “Maybe the city isn’t the problem.”
“Maybe not,” he said softly.
The silence that followed was not uncomfortable. It was dense, like a page filled with invisible ink. She broke it first. “Tell me something true.”
He exhaled. “I’m scared of leaving.”
“You said you liked the fight.”
“I do. But Assam is… far. And it feels like running away, even though it’s work. I don’t know if I’m ready to disappear.”
Aanya traced the rim of her tumbler. “Then don’t.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“It never is,” she admitted. “But sometimes staying takes more courage than leaving.”
Their eyes held across the flame, and in that moment she felt the pull of something larger than both of them, something the rain had been arranging quietly all along.
The waiter returned with the bill, breaking the spell. Vihaan paid quickly, brushing off her protest. When they stepped outside, the lane was dark except for scattered candles in shop windows. Puddles reflected their light like fallen stars.
He walked her to the auto stand. The city felt quieter than usual, subdued under the blackout. She wanted to say something, to name the ache tightening her chest, but words slipped away like water through fingers.
At the corner, as they waited for an auto, lightning tore the sky. For an instant, his face was etched in silver—determined, uncertain, hopeful. She almost reached for his hand, almost confessed what her journal already knew. Instead, she said, “Thank you for dinner.”
He nodded, searching her face. “Tomorrow?”
She hesitated, the word heavy on her tongue. Then she gave him what he wanted, what she secretly wanted too. “Maybe.”
When the auto arrived, she climbed in, turning once to see him still standing there, candlelight from the restaurant flickering behind him. As the auto pulled away, she opened her journal and scrawled a line against the jolt of the road: In the dark, a stranger’s voice can feel like light.
Part 7: The Letter of Transfer
The rain slowed that weekend, but the air carried its leftover heaviness—the smell of wet plaster, the sluggishness of drains, the quiet drip of balconies still remembering. Aanya had almost convinced herself to take a break from Vihaan. The “maybe” she kept repeating was supposed to be a defense, a wall to keep her safe from wanting too much. But by Saturday evening, she found herself at India Habitat Centre, where he had suggested they meet. She told herself she was going for the art exhibition, not for him. Yet when she spotted him waiting under the portico, shirt rolled at the sleeves, hair still damp from the drizzle, she knew the lie wasn’t fooling even her own pulse.
He greeted her with a smile that didn’t hide his tiredness. “You came.”
“Habit,” she said lightly.
They wandered through the exhibition halls, walls alive with photographs of rivers and mountains, landscapes framed in silence. Aanya paused before a black-and-white image of the Brahmaputra in flood, houses submerged, only rooftops and treetops visible. People huddled in a boat, their faces blurred by motion. She felt the photograph tug at her like an undertow.
“Assam looks like this,” Vihaan said quietly beside her.
She turned. “You’ve been?”
He nodded. “During my internship. Every year, entire villages drown. Children row to school in boats. Some never return. It’s why they want me there now.”
The words settled between them like water in a cavity—silent, inevitable. Aanya’s chest tightened. “So it’s real,” she said, though she had known since Jama Masjid.
He slipped his hand into his pocket, pulled out a folded paper. “The letter. Came last week.” He handed it to her.
She hesitated, then opened it. Government header, formal language, dates and designations. Her eyes caught on Transfer effective September 1st. Just two weeks away.
“You carry it with you?” she asked, her voice thinner than she intended.
“Like a confession,” he said. “Every time I think of not telling someone, it burns a hole in my pocket.”
Aanya refolded the paper carefully, as if it were fragile. She gave it back. “And you’re going?”
“I have to. It’s my job.”
They moved to another hall, the silence louder now. Paintings of rainclouds hung above them—ironies she didn’t want to acknowledge. Finally, she asked, “What about here? This city you fight for, this… you and me?”
He met her eyes, his own shadowed. “That’s what I don’t know.”
Aanya wanted to say don’t go. She wanted to scream it, to anchor him to this city with the weight of her need. But her throat closed. The last time she had asked someone to stay, they had walked away anyway. She would not beg again.
They walked outside. The drizzle had returned, fine needles stitching the evening air. They sat on the steps, neither speaking for a long time. Cars hissed by on the wet road. Somewhere nearby, a band rehearsed faint notes of jazz.
Finally, Vihaan said, “When I first saw you at the metro, I thought: here’s someone who hates the rain as much as I love it. And somehow that felt like balance.”
She gave a small, bitter laugh. “Balance doesn’t survive transfers.”
He flinched at the edge in her tone. “Aanya—”
“No,” she interrupted, softer this time. “Don’t explain. You don’t owe me that.”
But he shook his head. “I want to. Because this isn’t just weather anymore.”
Her breath caught. The words were close to something she wasn’t ready to hear, wasn’t ready to believe. She looked away, at the drizzle blurring the headlights into trembling halos.
“I don’t want to lose this,” he said, almost in a whisper.
She clenched her fists. “Then why tell me about Assam? Why not let this be… temporary, uncomplicated?”
“Because pretending would make it meaningless,” he replied, his voice steady.
Aanya stood abruptly. The drizzle caught her hair, slid down her cheeks, blurring into something else. She wanted to walk away, but her legs betrayed her, keeping her rooted.
He rose too, close now, close enough that she could smell rain on his skin. He reached for her hand, then hesitated, leaving it suspended. “Tell me what you want me to do,” he said.
She looked at him, heart colliding against ribcage, but the words refused. Instead she whispered the only truth she could manage: “I don’t know.”
They stood like that, drenched not in storm but in uncertainty, the letter still folded in his pocket like a verdict neither of them wanted to open again.
Later that night, alone in her room, Aanya lit a candle against another blackout. She opened her journal and wrote in jagged letters: He carries departure like a secret, and I carry silence like a shield. Between us, the city drowns.
Part 8: Waterline
The city woke to a storm that refused to negotiate. Streets turned into shallow rivers by morning; buses crawled like stubborn turtles, rickshaws tilted dangerously, and the Yamuna swelled with the arrogance of a guest who knew no one could send it home. Aanya left office early, her boss surrendering to waterlogged excuses. She wrapped her dupatta tight, shoes already soaked, as she pushed through a crowd near Mandi House. The rain was relentless, sheets of it slapping faces, umbrellas flipping in protest.
And then she saw him. Vihaan, standing knee-deep near the edge of a choked drain, shouting orders to two municipal workers as if the flood would obey his insistence. His shirt clung to him, folder pressed under one arm, gestures sharp with urgency. Even in chaos, he carried that steadiness she both admired and resented.
“Are you trying to drown yourself?” she shouted above the storm as she reached him.
He turned, startled. His eyes softened when he saw her. “You shouldn’t be out in this.”
“Neither should you,” she snapped, though the truth was she had come looking, hoping to find him among the storm’s wreckage.
He signaled the workers to adjust a pump pipe, water spurting angrily. Then he stepped toward her, water swirling around their legs. “This is my job.”
“And what am I, then?” The words came sharper than she intended, born of the letter still folded in his pocket. “A layover before Assam?”
His face hardened. “That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” She laughed bitterly. “You bring me into this, you make me—” She stopped, the confession lodged like a stone in her throat. “You make me feel, Vihaan. And then you wave a transfer letter like it’s some natural disaster no one can prevent.”
The rain hammered between them, louder than their voices, but neither cared if anyone overheard. Cars honked helplessly, water splashed, yet the world narrowed to their argument.
He stepped closer, anger flashing. “You think I asked for this? You think I wanted to meet you only to leave?”
“Then why didn’t you keep your distance?” she demanded, eyes burning. “Why chai, why shortcuts, why candlelit dinners if all of it ends with you boarding a train away from here?”
“Because I couldn’t help it!” His voice broke. “Because every time I saw you, Aanya, it felt like the rain wasn’t just flooding—it was giving something back.”
Her chest clenched. For a second she almost reached for him, almost forgave. But the storm inside matched the one around them. She shook her head. “Words don’t change departures.”
He looked at her, jaw tight, breath ragged. “And walls don’t stop feelings.”
They stood inches apart, water licking higher up their legs, thunder rolling overhead. The city around them blurred into chaos—horns, sirens, shouts—but their silence cut sharper. Finally, she turned, wading through the flood toward the metro entrance, her dupatta trailing like a flag of surrender.
Vihaan didn’t follow. Not this time.
Part 9: The Last Downpour
The city had grown tired of holding back. On the day Vihaan was supposed to leave, Delhi surrendered to its heaviest downpour yet. Connaught Place flooded like a cracked bowl, neon lights trembling in puddles, the colonnades echoing with the slap of hurried footsteps. Thunder cracked without apology. The drains stopped pretending.
Aanya sat at her desk, journal open, pen still. She had spent the last two days replaying their fight, each word swelling until it drowned her. She had tried to be angry, tried to tell herself this was what she wanted—an ending before it became something deeper. But every time she closed her eyes, she saw him in the water, steadying her, saving her, laughing at her reluctant smiles. And she saw the letter, folded in his pocket like a verdict.
Her phone buzzed. A message: Train at 7. Anand Vihar. Take care of the city for me.
The words hit her like cold rain inside her chest. Simple, final. Not an invitation, not a plea. A farewell disguised as instruction. She stared at them until the letters blurred. The clock read 6:15.
She told herself it was too late. She told herself she would not run through storm and flood for a man who was leaving anyway. But her body betrayed her. She grabbed her bag, journal tucked inside, and stepped into the rain.
The city swallowed her instantly. Autos splashed past, already taken. Roads clogged with cars honking in futility. The metro was delayed again. She stood at the mouth of Connaught Place, soaked to her skin in seconds, and realized the only way was to run.
So she did. Through knee-high water, through the chaos of umbrellas colliding, through the roar of the storm. Her sandals slipped, her dupatta tangled, but she kept moving. Every corner of Delhi seemed determined to slow her—traffic barricades, closed shutters, waves of rushing water. Yet each obstacle sharpened her urgency. She was no longer chasing him; she was chasing her own courage.
At 6:55 she reached Anand Vihar station, lungs burning, hair plastered to her cheeks. The platform buzzed with wet bodies, families clutching luggage, vendors shouting above the rain. The loudspeaker croaked about delays but no one listened.
And then she saw him. Standing near the train, suitcase at his side, shirt damp but posture calm, as if storms were nothing new. He scanned the crowd absently, not expecting her. When his eyes found her, disbelief flickered, then something rawer, softer.
“You came,” he said, voice rough over the thunder.
“You were really going to leave without letting me decide?” she shot back, breathless.
“I thought you already had,” he said quietly.
For a heartbeat they stood still while the station rushed around them, whistles blowing, porters shouting, children crying. Rain drummed on the roof, leaking through cracks.
She stepped closer, chest still heaving. “I don’t know what I want, Vihaan. I don’t know if I can do distance, or Assam, or even tomorrow. But I know this—” She swallowed, words trembling. “I don’t want to let you go without trying.”
His expression broke, anger melting into something like relief, like release. He dropped the suitcase handle and took her hand, gripping it as if anchoring himself. “Then we try,” he said simply.
The train whistle blew. The crowd surged. He glanced back at the carriage, then at her, torn. She shook her head. “If you have to go, go. But don’t erase this.”
He squeezed her hand once more, rainwater dripping from his lashes. “Never.”
And then, because there was nothing else to do, he bent and kissed her. Not careful, not tentative—the storm wouldn’t allow it. It was fierce, urgent, soaked with everything unsaid. Around them the crowd blurred, the rain roared, the whistle screamed. For that moment, only they existed: two people colliding like clouds, knowing the downpour was theirs alone.
When they broke apart, the train doors were closing. He grabbed his suitcase, eyes still locked on hers, and stepped inside. The train began to move, slowly, stubbornly, cutting through the rain. She stood on the platform, drenched, heart slamming, watching until the red tail light disappeared into the storm.
For a long time, she didn’t move. The platform emptied, puddles grew, the rain eased into a softer fall. Finally she opened her journal, pages damp, ink smudging, and wrote: Sometimes the city takes everything, but sometimes, in its worst storm, it returns what you thought was gone.
She closed it gently. Outside, the rain slowed, as if Delhi had finally spent its rage. But inside her, something had only just begun.
Part 10: After Rain
The storm broke that night. By morning, Delhi was still drenched but calmer, as if the city had finally exhausted itself. Roads were littered with fallen branches, posters peeled off walls, electricity wires sagged like tired arms. Yet the air smelled sharper, washed clean, heavy with petrichor and the faint sweetness of jamun fruit rotting underfoot.
Aanya woke late, her body sore from running, her throat raw from rain. For a few minutes she lay still, replaying the platform—the whistle, the kiss, the tail light vanishing into sheets of water. She half-convinced herself it had been a fever dream, the kind rain leaves behind. But when she opened her journal, the smudged words glared up at her, proof written in blurred ink.
Her phone buzzed. A message. Reached Guwahati. Train was delayed three hours after all. Figures. Already miss the chaos. And you.
Her chest tightened. She stared at the screen until the words soaked into her, then typed back: Delhi misses you too. Especially its drains. She added a smiley before she could overthink.
That day, the city felt different. At the office, colleagues grumbled about outages and wet files, but Aanya found herself smiling at small things—the steam curling from roadside chai, the glint of sun between ragged clouds, even the splash of a bus that drenched her shoes. The rain no longer mocked her; it echoed him.
Nights were harder. She lit candles when power failed, the silence filled with his absence. Sometimes she wrote pages in her journal, sometimes only a single word. Almost. Distance. Still. Other times she left paper planes on her windowsill, folded out of advertising drafts, letting the wind carry them nowhere.
Vihaan called when he could, his voice crackling over bad networks. He described swollen rivers, bamboo bridges, the stubborn kindness of families who shared tea even as water licked their thresholds. She told him about Delhi’s slow return to routine, about slogans that paid bills but not the heart, about her nani’s latest rant against the city’s sewage board. Their conversations were patchy, sometimes cut short, but they became the rhythm of her nights.
Weeks slipped into months. September dulled into October, then November. The monsoon ended. Delhi put away its umbrellas, dust returned, smog climbed like an uninvited guest. The city coughed itself into winter, but inside her, rain still lingered—his laughter, his steadiness, that kiss in the storm.
One evening, she visited Lodhi Gardens again. No drizzle this time, only dry leaves crunching underfoot, the tombs bathed in brittle sunlight. She sat on the same steps where he had once held her hand, journal open, pen poised. But this time, the words didn’t come as lament. They came as promise.
Rain is not memory. Rain is rehearsal. For when the sky breaks, for when love arrives uninvited, for when departures don’t mean endings but pauses. One season can change the map of a heart.
She read it twice, then smiled. For the first time, she didn’t tuck the journal away quickly. She let the page breathe.
Her phone buzzed again. A photo: Vihaan, standing knee-deep in muddy water, grinning, holding up a paper boat. The caption: Testing flood models. Delhi girl, this one’s for you.
Her laugh startled a pigeon into flight. She whispered into the garden air, “Maybe.” Then, after a pause, she said it again, firmer. “Yes.”
As she walked home through Delhi’s winter dusk, the city no longer felt like a burden. It felt like a waiting room, messy and alive. She didn’t know when he would return, didn’t know if letters and calls could bridge Assam and Delhi. But she knew this: the rain had given her back her courage.
That night, she folded a page from her journal into a paper plane, wrote across its wings: Wherever you are, the sky is the same. She placed it on the windowsill, letting the wind decide its journey.
And when she blew out the candle, the darkness didn’t feel like loss anymore. It felt like weather, passing, carrying her toward another season.
The End
