Singing in the rain

On Friday evening the rain finally arrived. One second the sun was beating down and the next it had disappeared behind a sheet of dark grey cloud and the wind swept in from nowhere whipping up great clouds of dust and dirt. And then the rain came. Great buckets of it falling in huge, fat, wet drops, washing away the dust and the dirt from the streets and replacing the hot dry air with clean fresh air. The temperature plummeted from 43 degrees to an incredible 28 degrees in the space of a few hours. It’s the strangest feeling to go from forgetting what it feels like not to be hot and sweaty to suddenly feeling a slight shiver go through you from the cold (28 degrees, my new benchmark for cold!).

Delhi is many things to me but it’s rare that I’d describe it as a beautiful city in its totality but after the first rain it really did seem as though I were seeing the city again for the first time. The day after the rain the sky was the deepest, brightest blue I think I’ve ever experienced here and with the dust washed away the city’s true colours are revealed underneath, the lines of buildings appear sharper and everything is pulled into focus again. The sweet, sticky smell of summer is replaced by the smell of rain water, wet leaves and damp earth and after weeks of breathing in hot, dusty air you feel light headed with excitement at being able to breath in lungfulls of clean, cool air. There’s a palpable sense of relief and excitement that ripples across the city.

I know that in the UK there were days when I just wished I lived somewhere else where it didn’t rain quite so much – much like everyone at home is probably feeling right now after the 191^st day of rain this year – but I hope that when I am back home on one of those rainy days that I’ll at least remember on occasions how much I appreciated the rain out here and how lucky we are to have so much of it.