By Vimal Kapoor
It started with thunder—low, steady, like someone clearing their throat. I leaned against the car window, watching as mist snaked along the road like a slow-moving spectre. The green of Dehradun was different from Delhi—deeper and quieter.
“We’re almost there,” Ma said, as our white Swift zipped past NIVH at Rajpur Road.
I was thirteen that summer, and not particularly excited about spending two weeks with Ma’s college friend’s family at Dehradun. But as soon as we turned into their leafy driveway, something shifted. The rain had just paused, and the wet earth smelled like home I didn’t know I missed.
“Asha!” Ma exclaimed the moment she saw her friend, and suddenly there were squeals, hugs, and nostalgic laughter. I hung back, holding my little brother’s hand as we stepped into the yellow-painted bungalow with green moss climbing up its edges.
Inside, the air was warm, filled with the scent of sandalwood and ginger chai.
“Meet my son, Arjun,” Asha Aunty said, motioning toward a tall boy with floppy hair and headphones slung around his neck.
He gave a small nod. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said, half-waving.
That was our introduction – brief and awkward
The first two days passed like an old radio song—familiar yet faraway. The adults sat on the veranda every morning, sipping chai and discussing things like “rebirth” and “karma”.
“Have you read Autobiography of a Yogi?” I heard Ma ask one morning, while I and Arjun sat on the porch steps, watching rain trickle through the leechi leaves.
“Of course,” Asha Aunty said, “Yogananda had a way of explaining the universe like no one else.”
Arjun snorted. “They talk like it’s a podcast,” he whispered to me.
I grinned. “Seriously.”
That was our first proper exchange.
On the third day, the rain got serious. It wasn’t content with misting or drizzling—it poured like it had been holding back for years. Power flickered and went out.
We all huddled in the living room with candles, and the air was thick with the scent of damp upholstery, incense, and turmeric from the evening curry.
Arjun got up and headed upstairs. I hesitated a second, then followed him.
He had a small attic room with a slanted roof and posters of bands I’d never heard of. There were paintbrushes stuck in jars, and an open notebook filled with sketches.
“You draw?” I asked.
“Yeah. You?”
“I write. Stories mostly.”
He looked at me for a long second. “What kind?”
“Ones that end before you expect them to.”
He smiled. “Like this rain.”
By the fourth day, our vibes were instant.
In the mornings, I’d help Asha Aunty in the kitchen. She taught me how to roll perfect paneer parathas while humming old Kishore Kumar songs. Arjun painted while his headphones thumped some hi-fi beat I could barely hear.
One afternoon, he handed me a page from his sketchbook. It was a drawing of me, sitting by the window, notebook in lap, rain behind me like curtains.
“You drew this?”
“Don’t look so surprised. You write about people. I draw them.”
I stared at the sketch. It was nice.
Evenings were for stories.
The parents would sit around a lantern, talking softly.
“Do you ever wonder,” Ma mused, “if we chose each other in another life?”
“I think we keep finding each other,” Asha Aunty replied. “Same souls. Different scripts.”
Meanwhile, Arjun and I sat on the back veranda with mugs of hot cocoa, talking about school, books, and strange teachers.
“Our Chemistry sir walks like an army brigadier, chest puffed out,” he said.
“Mine says ‘equilibrium’ like it’s a disease.”
We laughed so hard we almost dropped our mugs. Thunder cracked in the distance, and rain began again—persistent, relentless.
On the last night, Ma asked me, “Did you enjoy yourself?”
I nodded. “More than I thought.”
Asha Aunty smiled at me. “You and Arjun seem to get along.”
“He’s alright,” I said, grinning. Arjun rolled his eyes from across the room.
After dinner, he handed me a folded paper. “Open later.”
It was a drawing of both of us—sitting under the porch roof, talking. Below it, in his messy handwriting: “Sometimes the best summers are made of rain.”
As we drove away the next morning, the rain followed us like a polite goodbye.
I leaned against the car window again, watching the mist curl back into the hills.
Dehradun wasn’t just about rain. It was about finding a version of yourself in a stranger’s sketchbook, about the warmth of borrowed stories, and laughter that felt like monsoon thunder—loud, unexpected, and oddly comforting.
(Vimal Kapoor, a Dehradun resident, is passionate about literature, creating writing, cricket and exploration through travel)
