Bengaluru After Rain.

Bengaluru after rain and two days of sunlight is a different city altogether.

The trees look as though they have taken a bath and dressed for a festival.

The old trunks stand darker and prouder.

The bushes look freshly combed.

The greens become greener than what memory allows them to be.

And then there is the grass.

Cubbon Park grass.

Not merely green.

Cushiony.

The kind of grass that makes you want to take off your shoes and walk slowly, feeling it beneath your feet.

The city smells different too.

Wet earth slowly giving way to warmth.

Leaves drying in the afternoon sun.

And somewhere in the distance, a peanut cart quietly roasting peanuts.

You smell it before you see it.

That smell somehow belongs to Bangalore as much as rain and traffic do.

The old trees watch everything without hurry.

Morning walkers.

Children.

Dogs.

Readers.

Dreamers.

People carrying entire lives inside their heads while walking beneath branches older than themselves.

And then inevitably comes the thought every Bangalorean understands:

“Swalpa MTR ge hogi bisi bisi kaapi kudiyona anta.”

Not because one is hungry.

Not because one needs coffee.

Simply because some evenings insist on ending with filter coffee served in a steel tumbler and davara.

For all its chaos, construction, traffic, and endless debates about what Bangalore used to be and what it is becoming, the city still occasionally pauses to remember itself.

Usually after rain.

Usually under old trees.

Usually when nobody is looking.