The Chicago Rains

1^st April, 2017. Saturday.

The Emirates flight touched the Chicago O’Hare International Airport with a thud. The last one hour was a bumpy ride. We went through the dense dark clouds, until the waters of Lake Michigan glittered below. The aircraft fell into a couple of air pockets. I ignored most of it because my mind was pre-occupied with the excitement of meeting my sister, Ria, and her family after one and a half years. The last time we met was in December 2015, when we all happened to be in Chandannagore at the same time. Her husband Anirban, coincidentally, was my roommate in my first year in college. He was one of the most organized persons in the hostel. While often we went for lunch on a Bermuda and vest, he always came bathed, neatly combed and in kurta pyjamas. And then there is my nephew, who has grown up to the cutest and most adorable two and a half year old boy I have seen. They all came to receive me at the airport.

“Its so cloudy and windy here”, I remarked.

“There are predictions of rain…may be even snow!” Anirban commented.

We reached their house around 8 PM. In the meantime, Anirban stopped at an Indian grocery store to buy sweets. I realized an elaborate food menu is on the cards. The first couple of hours was off loading the gifts for them and then loading the gifts that they had bought for us. I was worried about the luggage limit. Anirban provided me an extra bag to carry them.

“The way you are providing me one thing after another, I guess, the next time I will come with one-way ticket. You may as well provide me the return ticket!”, I remarked.

Then I had a gala time with my nephew. In the meantime we started our chit-chats - stories, tales, gossips. At 11 o’clock we sat for dinner. Like a typical Bengali host, Ria cooked a gamut of dishes. Chicken, prawn, mutton, fish, fried rice – nothing was spared.

“This much I had to cook. This is the first time you came to our house, dada.” was her reply.

With every hour our stories became more and more gripping. One story leading to another. One incident reminding us of another. One event followed by another. Right from the childhood till date and all the years and decades that passed in between. All that we wanted to say but never found time to. All that we held back for so many years, skeptical how the other would react. That night the wall came crumbling down. We opened our hearts. Serious talks and lighter ones, about friends and about family, about India and abroad, about new relationships and the broken ones, about the shattered dreams and the new ones, about expectations and realities, about life and beyond…

“You remember that incident? When we all….”

“And that friend of ours….”

“I cannot forget that day….”

“That incident was so unwanted….”

“And they were never able to patch up…”

“Was it really necessary to…”

Hours of talking over the phone and thousands of messages in whatsapp over the years gave us the wrong impression that we didn’t have much to left to talk about.

“Is it the sound of thunder outside?”, I thought I heard a loud thundering noise.

“No, dada. It’s the cars zooming on the freeway right beside.”

The hands of the clock rotated quite a few times over. 2 AM, 3 AM….still we didn’t have any plans to sleep.

“I have lots of days when I can sleep as much as I want to, but such moments rarely come”, said Ria.

Twenty five years ago if anyone told me about any such meetings of the siblings in some corner of Chicago it would have been called a dream beyond dreams. But here we are….At 4:45 AM, Anirban with red eyes, retired to bed. Ria and I were still in no mood to hang up our shoes. When it was about 6, we decided to take some rest. However barely three hours after that, we all were awake and picked up the thread where we felt. Almost 12 hours later they dropped me at my hotel in Chicago, which was just beside the lake. It was very windy. A few drops fell on me as I hurried inside.

On the way we went to the Vivekananda’s Vedanta Society. We realized that it was in one quite place in Chicago, far away from the crowd, like an old movie set which no longer has the spot light on it. It was left on its own. The photos on the wall tried to freeze some moments in time while the city was busy running after time.

                                                                                ***

For the next three days I was kept busy in official work. Presentations, formalities, meetings and greetings kept me occupied. I left my room at 7 AM in the morning for breakfast and was confined to the meeting rooms till 11 PM at night. Lake Michigan was right in front of the hotel. I saw the waves breaking on its shore. And a dark dense cloud hovered over the lake, which looked more of a placid sea – the opposite shore of the lake was not visible. While taking the lift as I looked to the lake, I found people jogging on the pavement skirting it, some with dogs. Cars zoomed passed by. The trees swayed. At times the roads were wet. But I neither heard the wind howl, not smelt the rain. I was confined in one of those tall glass buildings, that had once appealed to me, but now suffocates me.

At night when I retired to my hotel room I looked at the lighted skyscrapers that stood tall in front of my large glass window. The snaky roads from my twenty-ninth floor room seemed to shine under the street lights and headlights of the car. I seemed to look at the concrete jungle and moving machines.. And yet, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think of Chicago is the speech by the famous Indian saint Swami Vivekananda at the World Congress of Religion in 1893. A place which echoed spiritualism about a century back now prides in its concrete jungle. The voice of the spiritual leader seems to have been has been long lost in the sound of the cars and machines.

                                                                                ***

5^th April, 2017. Wednesday.

On the third day, just before taking my evening flight, I had just enough time to meet Pinaki (Guha). Another very close college friend of mine. I went to his office, which was just a few blocks away from my hotel.

We could hardly believe that we are meeting after more than a decade. We grabbed coffee and took a corner seat in the coffee shop. It was right beside the pavement. Old memories flowed in. The sky, whatever could be seen through the skyscrapers, was cloudy.

People walked hurriedly with beautiful umbrellas – red, green, purple.  It was drizzling. But it must have rained heavily sometime back when I was in one of those window-less air-conditioned meeting rooms. The roads and pavement were wet.

We talked about so many things under the sun. In college, we used to talk about the life ahead. About jobs after college, about girlfriends, about the semesters and the assignments, about parents. This time we talked about our kids and their future, our families, our dreams, our office….

“You know, I take my son for piano lessons thrice a week. Better to do something creative than watch TV and play video games all day”, Pinaki remarked.

We talked about our lives which is so different from the one we had in college. When we were in the first year in college, we had some certainty about the next four years. Whereas now, leave alone four years, things can change so dramatically even in the next four months. We talked about the lives that we have and the one that we don’t.

“This cloudy and dull weather makes one so depressed”, I said at one point.

We talked about our kids and our lives when they grow up and fly out of the nests. We talked about books we read and the movies we watch. We talked about his involvement in the Bengali Association in Chicago and my obsession with exploring India.

And we talked about our friends.

 “What is he doing now?”

 “That professor, who taught us….”

“Remember that incident…”

“You know he is in…”

We talked and talked and talked.

We talked about some past misunderstandings and future vacation plans.

“Let me know when you have to be back in office”, I reminded Pinaki after an hour or so. By that time the coffee cups were empty. But none of us was interested in filling it. Coffee was just an excuse to find a place to sit.

“Another 10 minutes…”, he said. And that 10 minutes went on to become another full-fledged hour, until I realized that I had to get up before its too late to catch my flight back home.

“We could talk relentlessly for the next 24 hours, without getting tired or bored”, I remarked. But, deep inside we knew we had to part ways in a matter of minutes.

“We didn’t change much”, Pinaki said after taking a selfie with the huge towers in the background.

“Yes. Both in terms of how we look at life and the way we look!”

It was time to leave. I called a taxi for the airport. A lightning flashed…a thunder roared…a few drops started falling. Soon it started raining heavily. It became a haze. Pinaki disappeared in that haze. I was on the way to the airport amidst the torrential rain that lashed Chicago that day.
As I passed Lake Michigan, it never looked more beautiful- rain drops pouring on the placid lake...creating  ripples, making waves,weaving magic...bringing back bitter sweet memories of meeting near and dear ones in the distant shores of Chicago.