When the Bell Rings

You can almost time it on your watch. Suddenly the afternoon sun loses its killer instinct, pigeons flutter their dusty wings to a perch under an eve, Tibetan prayer flags undulate softly at the arrival of a new breeze, the chaotic squeal of the street comes down a decibel, and a tattered coat is systematically unfurled over a sidewalk table of brass ornaments and wood carvings. Then a new shadow creeps over the earth. One singular drop, weighing three ounces in volume, lands squarely on the center of your head, and has enough momentum to trickle all the way down your cheek. A rapturous pitter-patter deafens the blasts of horns and quenches the thirst of the road. The hovering dust of the day, stirred up from rickshaws and the stomps of incessant footsteps, is beaten down and becomes one with the drops in a milky, splashing mud. And then, as if a retainer is pulled out from the heavens, as if the tarp of the gods is snatched from the sky, a reservoir of water is dumped over the Kathmandu Valley. The monsoon has arrived.

And suddenly it is gone with the same passion it employed to arrive. The sun returns and casts flickers of light over the mild destruction of the rain. Potholes have been transformed to filthy mirrors, reflecting from above the dancing image of cobwebbed telephone wires, barred windows, and crumbling balconies. A quiet dissipation grabs hold of the city. The saturated prayer flags are now still in the air, but for a slow motion drip drop as they dry out. The birds return from the overhangs and make baths from the alleyway puddles. The sun conjures a mystical steam from the road as it sets back to its baking ways, and sucks the moisture right back into the sky, where it will dwell and stew until the bell rings tomorrow afternoon.