Hyderabad’s rain often waits until evening because the day’s heat builds up the atmosphere, triggering thunderstorms later in the afternoon or evening. Like a typical Indian husband who soaks up pressure all day and bursts out at night.
This phenomenon of nature has shaped the city’s habits.
Since it hardly ever rains in the morning, no one in Hyderabad carries an umbrella. Even though it’s the rainy season, if it isn’t raining now, it probably won’t rain later, so why carry an umbrella and minus my aura points? Also, it looks stupid to carry an umbrella in the sun.
And if it rains, we know we have metro pillars and chai shops to take refuge in. That’s better than walking around with an umbrella looking like Kishore Kumar.
If I could change one thing about Hyderabad, it would be this. Because it never rains in the morning, we have all been robbed of saying, ‘Sorry sir, it’s raining. I cannot come today’.
Instead, we go to work because it’s sunny, and right when we log out, the rain logs in. We end up staying in the office for more hours for the same pay.
It’s also why all the rain-related traffic jams happen in the evening, when people want to go home, get cosy, eat bajji and make babies. Instead, we’re stuck outside IKEA, hating the rain, the infrastructure and everyone around us.
If it only rained in the morning, all plans would have been cancelled and, by the time the rain stopped, it would have been too late to reach the office. We could finally visit that friend who just had a baby.
Even if I started work and got stuck in the rain, I’d be happier saying, ‘I’m late to work because I’m stuck in the rain’, instead of, ‘I’m late from work because I’m stuck in traffic’.
Let my company lose time. Why should my personal time suffer?
This phenomenon has shaped movies too. They always show rain in the evening. I mean, for them it’s a water tank with a shower, but still, the scene is always in the evening.
It’s never the hero waking up in the morning, wishing his parents good morning and suddenly getting drenched in the rain. No. It’s always sunny on a Hyderabad morning. All the rain happens in the evening when he is out, so when his love interest appears, it gets more sensual.
Like pakodas, I would like to eat idly in the rain, but that never happens in reel or real life because, like I said, it never rains in the morning.
But the other day, it did.
It rained in the morning, and because it was so completely out of character for Hyderabad, I suddenly felt out of place.
I have been in floods. I have dealt with Hyderabad traffic during heavy rain. But morning rain? I had no idea what to do.
The first thing I did was cancel my plan.
‘Hey, it’s raining. I can’t come’.
Finally, I could use the excuse I had been denied all these years. I told all my stakeholders, ‘It’s raining. I can’t start now’.
Then I went back to sleep.
By the time I woke up, the rain had stopped.
And suddenly it felt like I had lied to get out of work.
Sandesh
@msgfromsandesh
(This comedian is here to tell funny stories about Hyderabad)
(The writer’s views are his own)