When Raindrops Whispered Love

It was the first rain of the season in Kolkata. The kind that made the city smell like old earth and nostalgia. Maya stood beneath the half-torn shade of a secondhand bookstore on College Street, clutching her dupatta and watching the raindrops turn the dust into dark, wet patches. Her eyes followed the water trailing along the edges of the pavement, catching discarded betel leaves and broken dreams. She loved the monsoon. It was the only time the city slowed down, as if offering her time to breathe.

Maya, a final-year literature student at Presidency University, had always believed that the rains told stories—hidden in thunder, in puddles, in the sigh of the wet wind. She wasn’t one for fleeting crushes or dramatic declarations. She believed love, like rain, had to come when the soil was ready.

She was admiring the script on a weather-worn edition of Gitanjali when she saw him. A tall, thin boy walking down the middle of the road, unbothered by the downpour. He held no umbrella, wore no raincoat—just a black kurta now soaked and sticking to his frame. In his hand was a tattered copy of Shesher Kobita, as if protecting it mattered more than protecting himself.

Their eyes met for a heartbeat. Maya, startled. He, unreadable. He walked past without a smile, but something about the moment stayed with her.

Two days later, they met again. Not by design, but by that invisible rhythm of the universe that strings people together. Maya was haggling over a secondhand copy of The Bell Jar, arguing with the bookseller about the quality of the binding. The same boy appeared beside her, glanced at the book, and said, “Fifty is fair. It’s not about the pages. It’s about what they carry.”

She turned, surprised. “And who made you the judge of poetry pricing?”

He gave a small, almost shy smile. “Nobody. Just someone who writes a little… when it rains.”

There was an awkward pause. Then Maya smiled back. “I read Plath in summer. I reserve the rain for Tagore.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Chai?”

It was sudden. But it didn’t feel strange.

They sat at a nearby tea stall. The rain eased, but they didn’t stop talking. His name was Arjun. He was pursuing an M.A. in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur. He recited a short poem he’d written the day it first rained—raw, unfinished, but sincere. Maya responded by quoting Neruda.

In the days that followed, the same tea stall became their adda. Between samosas and verses, between literary debates and awkward silences, something unnamed began growing. They would meet after class, sometimes skipping lectures just to sit by the tram lines or walk along the Hooghly, their conversations drifting between metaphors and maybes.

There was a day they escaped a sudden cloudburst by jumping into an empty tram. The city blurred outside, all noise muted by the curtain of rain. Inside, Arjun took her hand. “I don’t know where this is going,” he said.

“Neither do I,” Maya replied, her fingers tightening around his.

That night, they wrote a poem together. It wasn’t good, but it was theirs.

Not everything was smooth. Arjun, though warm and intense, had walls—built from anxiety, past heartbreaks, and self-doubt. Maya was ambitious, sometimes distant, her mind already halfway to the future. There were times he would disappear for days, not answering her messages. Once, he went completely off the radar. When he finally returned, he confessed that he had attended a poetry retreat in Shantiniketan but suffered a panic attack on the second day and couldn’t face anyone.

“I didn’t know how to explain the emptiness,” he told her, voice shaking.

“You don’t vanish on people you love,” she replied, hurt and angry.

“I didn’t think I deserved you.”

It wasn’t an apology. But it was a plea. Maya stayed.

The seasons turned. The rains came and went. They built something fragile but real.

By the end of their final year, life began to stretch them apart. Maya got admission into a prestigious MPhil program in Delhi. Arjun stayed back in Kolkata, trying to make a living as a writer. They stood on the ghats of the Hooghly the day before she left, the river swollen, the skies heavy.

“Long distance doesn’t work,” he said quietly.

“Then let’s not call it that. Let’s just say we’re still writing, just from different rooms.”

He handed her a folded paper. A poem.

If raindrops can find the ocean,
Then I can find you—
In cities, in silence,
In storms too.

She kissed him on impulse. “Don’t stop writing,” she said.

They didn’t make promises. Just poetry.

In Delhi, life moved faster. Maya was overwhelmed with classes, new people, deadlines. Arjun sent letters at first—then audio notes, then silence. It wasn’t that they fell out of love. They just got… out of sync.

Then one monsoon morning, a parcel arrived. Inside was a book—Arjun’s first published poetry collection. The title: When Raindrops Whispered Love. The dedication read:

For Maya—every verse found its voice in you.

She read it cover to cover on the metro. When she reached the last page, she realized she was crying.

Two years later, Maya returned to Kolkata for a conference. It was raining—soft, steady, almost theatrical. She wandered to College Street, the place where it all began. The book stalls were still there, though fewer now. The tea stall was closed.

She wandered without a plan. A part of her wasn’t sure why she was even there.

Then, at the crossing near the tram stop, she saw him.

Arjun. No umbrella. Holding a book. Same black kurta. Same unreadable face.

As if time had folded in on itself.

Their eyes met. This time, she ran. He didn’t move. He didn’t have to.

She stopped in front of him, breathless.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

They stood in the rain, not caring who watched. No dramatic confessions. Just being.

Later, at the tea stall (which had reopened), they sat over two muddy cups of chai. The silence was comfortable now. She told him about Delhi. He told her about the two poetry workshops he ran. They didn’t ask, “What next?” That wasn’t needed.

Years later, they would move in together. A small apartment in South Kolkata with leaky windows and books piled to the ceiling. Maya taught at a university. Arjun wrote, sometimes taught creative writing. They adopted a dog named Neruda.

Every year, on the first day of rain, they took a long walk—no umbrella—letting the water run down their arms, remembering who they used to be.

One day, their daughter asked, “Why do you love the rain so much?”

Maya looked at Arjun, then said, “Because it sounds like love. Soft. Persistent. And impossible to ignore.”

The rain kept falling.

The End.

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links

When Raindrops Whispered Love : https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/06/when-raindrops-whispered-love.html

Salt in the Air : https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/salt-in-air.html

Price of Dreams: A Tale of Money, Morals, and Mayhem (Chapter 5): https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/price-of-dreams-tale-of-money-morals_23.html

Price of Dreams: A Tale of Money, Morals, and Mayhem (Chapter 4): https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/price-of-dreams-tale-of-money-morals_3.html

Price of Dreams: A Tale of Money, Morals, and Mayhem (Chapter 3): https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/price-of-dreams-tale-of-money-morals_97.html

Price of Dreams: A Tale of Money, Morals, and Mayhem (Chapter 2): https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/price-of-dreams-tale-of-money-morals_22.html

Price of Dreams: A Tale of Money, Morals, and Mayhem (Chapter 1): https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/price-of-dreams-tale-of-money-morals.html

Full story_ In another life : https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/in-another-life-love-story-left_14.html

In another life trailer: https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/in-another-life-love-story-left.html 

Intro of life in words: https://lifeinwords2025.blogspot.com/2025/05/life-in-words-home-for-heartfelt-stories.html