A Lovely Walk With my Dear Dad [Lily]

Today I had a perfectly wonderful day. Lately, it has been raining cats and dogs. Last night, the rain was so hard, I could scarcely see out the window. But today I was having a good day. I put on my favorite jeans that just got back from the cleaners. My dad and I had been planning to spend a day at the American Center Library, reading or whatever. We planned to go to a restaurant with dosas – delicious, heavenly dosas drowned in coconut chutney. Ahh.

Okay, so we planned this fun day. We (mostly meaning my dad) decided it was fine to go out. The rain yesterday didn’t flood or anything! I mean seriously.

So we get outside, it’s raining a little bit. No harm, right? We look around for a taxi to take us to the metro station. None anywhere. We’re about to turn around and go home, when this man drives up and asks if we need a ride. This guy seemed pretty nice, so my dad said OK. (Just if you were wondering, he wasn’t a terrorist. He brought us straight to the American Center Library.) So if this guy’s out driving, the streets probably aren’t that bad. Okay, as we’re driving, there are some little floods, but we got there.

In India, there is tight security. Real tight. I wasn’t allowed to bring my books in! Library books only. Okay. Inside, we were there for about two hours before lunch. In that time, I read a whole book, as I’m a quick reader, but you probably don’t care about that.

So at lunch time, we walk almost to the restaurant; no floods. But when we get there, just our luck, the whole area around the place is flooded ankle-deep. Nice. So we go to a Chinese restaurant. It was pretty good. While we were eating our prawns in garlic sauce and kung-pau chicken, it starts pouring. By the time we were done, it had stopped, though.

We took the Metro to the nearest station to our apartment; and when we got there; totally flooded. And we had to walk home - no let me rephrase that: trudge home - since the taxis could hardly drive through the streets. Like I said, my favorite jeans that just got back from the cleaners. I rolled them up to my knees and started trudging. It wasn’t too bad at first; only up to my ankles. A bit later it was up to the middle of my shins. A bit later it’s too my knees. There go my jeans. A while later, THE WATER WAS UP TO MID-THIGH, and if that wasn’t bad enough, it started to rain. Did I mention this water isn’t exactly the cleanest? Kolkata streets are so dirty, this water was brown. And it had trash and vegetable guts in it. I think I’m going to sue Mother Nature. Or at least make her pay for cleaning my jeans. (Not that I have to pay for it in the first place.) Dad says I’ll laugh about it eventually, but it’s not exactly happening right now.

So parents; next time your child complains he (or she) can’t do something because it’s raining, tell him (or her) the story of an eleven-year-old named Lily Hartley.