The knocking sound was loud.  Someone was slamming a door.  And in the cavernous rectangle that is my unfurnished flat, I wasn’t sure who, why, or where.  A neighbor upstairs?  The landlord next door?  Someone outside in the road below?

Then it occurred to me.  My windows were slamming themselves.  Delhi’s dry morning heat had been transformed into the gusty grey of a rainstorm.  And my unfastened windows were slamming open and shut, over and over again.

This was definitely not my lucky day.  I was already late for a meeting at the Lawyer’s Collective, and now I was about to be drenched as well.  The open-air autorickshaw was pelted from all directions as it navigated the streets.  My pants were soaked.  Wet dust stuck to my face.

In a sheltered space beneath the Ring Road overpass/flyover, my auto driver joined a group of motorcyclists and other autorickshaws as they escaped from the storm.  I had a meeting to get to, but the young driver didn’t seem too concerned.  He told me I was better off going back home.

Apparently, autorickshaws aren’t amphibious vehicles.  Three-quarters of the way to Masjid Road, the driver told me something was wrong with his auto and that I would need to find another one.  And so the haggling began, again.

Like sharks tasting blood in the water, the other drivers jacked up their starting offers.  The message?  “You are standing in the rain.  You are soaked.  You will give me what I want.  Only then will I take you.”

But eventually the rain stopped.  And what would have been another hot, sweaty day was transformed into something cool, wet, and beautiful.  As it turns out, Delhi’s best moments are after a storm.  And though the sun is now returning with a vengeance, I still have the puddles outside my building to prove it.