The Flavours Of Rain & The Nostalgic Cravings That Come With It

For a few moments after your alarm rings in the morning, and the dream you were snatched out of fades into a murky memory, time does not feel real. You look beyond your phone screen that has never felt so bright, and finally notice that sliver of the world you can see beyond your curtain is nearly as dark as your room. 

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You lie back down, and slowly but surely, you feel yourself being dragged back into the world of the living. Sure, you had noted the rainbow-kissed skies from the days leading up to this moment, but no one is ever really prepared for the rain. 

A city in the rain feels like limbo. The streets are both asleep and full of life. The trees that were bathed in dust from construction come to life. From foggy windows to damp commuters, the world is stuck between fast-forward and pause, where the consistently dark sky swallows hours, and slows minutes. 

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Yet, as you make your way through the city, and realise that it was never really grey, but green and gold. And as you dodge puddles that you would have splashed in as a child, something slowly dawns on you. A myriad of memories flash through your mind. Stemming from a puddle that had no right to look as iridescent as it did. Watercolour memories of splashing in the rain, running to school in sticky raincoats, praying for rain holidays, sprinting across the street with no monsoonwear to get to shelter, sitting in the dark by the window when the electricity went away during a storm and indulging in piping hot food. Always food. 

More Than Cravings 

For us, food holds memories. Even the mere scent of a spice can trigger something you had once forgotten. And food in the rain is somehow more special. A lot of what you crave does not come from you, but from your childhood. Because who knew a steaming hot bowl of Maggi by the window during the rain could make you think about people you had not spoken to in years. 

From a sip of hot tea to the crunch of a samosa or fried onion and potato fritters, everything you crave in the rain is for your soul. Each bite transports you to a time when you would have jumped into the puddle instead of jumping over it. 

Food Is Memory

I once read that we are mosaics of everyone we ever loved. And in the rain, I cannot find myself agreeing more. Because, you see, the plate of pakora that you crave during the rain became a tradition because of something passed down from generations. That same bowl of nostalgia, that you reach for the second the first drop of rain hits the pavement, is the same bowl your parents ate when they were children and their parents before them. It is a legacy that binds us. 

A friend of mine craves a melty grilled cheese sandwich during the rain because her sister used to make it for her when they were children and had no real culinary abilities. Another friend drinks hot chocolate because back in school, she and her friends would drink it at each other's houses after tuition during the monsoon. Another reaches for the spicy, tangy bhutta because, after swimming in the rain as a child, she and her friends would share a corncob.

So, as the rain envelopes the city, making both past and present merge for a just a few minutes, reach for that bowl of instant noodles or that plate of bhajiyas or the snack that you came up with as a child, and turn into the same person that once jumped into puddles, instead of away from them.