Lessons from the Rain

Crises often awaken old memories and take us back in time. The recent floods in Kolkata prompted our member Mr B. Bandopadhyay to recall his experiences with rain—both in the city and in the mountains.

On the night of 25 September 2025, there was a cloudburst in Kolkata, and in just four hours we received what some cities get in an entire year. It has been many years since I witnessed rain of such proportions.
It is not always the volume of rain that is to be feared, however. I remember trekking to the Kedarnath and Badrinath temples many years ago. We had stopped for a meal at the halfway mark, and with four or five kilometres still to go before reaching Hanuman Chatti, it started to rain. The rain wasn’t heavy, but late autumn showers at such high altitudes—Kedarnath stands at 11,755 feet—are accompanied by sharp winds that cut into your skin. We were wearing raincoats, but they offered little protection from the chill that left our knees—uncovered by the raincoat—aching and sore. Umbrellas were no help either; we held them not above our heads but in front of us as shields.
Certain stretches of the trek ran along loose gravel, making our ascent dangerous, but we soldiered on as the rain fell in slanted sheets. Higher up, we saw that it had snowed, and some people had slipped on the sleet. As the horses passed by, we worried for the riders and hoped they would not fall off the edge of the road. Deprived of oxygen, it took us nearly three hours in the rain to walk those four kilometres to Hanuman Chatti. We were cautious, and somehow made it to the top without injury.
Another time, I went to watch a football match. A relative had managed to secure a ticket to the Mohun Bagan vs East Bengal final, played in front of Fort William. In those days, spectators had to watch from the ramparts. My relative, fourteen years younger than I, asked me to accompany him. As the match ended, the skies opened up, and I lost him in the crowd. I waited for him at Curzon Park for an hour, drenched to the skin.
Rain has a way of humbling us—whether it falls in torrents over a city or comes down gently on a mountain trail. It tests our patience, our endurance, and sometimes even our courage. Yet when the clouds clear, the memory of such moments stays with us, reminding us how small we are before the forces of nature.

(as narrated to Support Elders by our member)