Echoes of longing, and a spell of midsummer rain

This week, the city woke up differently. Rain fell in thick, slanted sheets—the kind that makes you pause mid-sentence, mid-thought. The winds were gusty, sweeping through the trees and balconies, sending curtains flapping and windows clattering. For once, the dread of Monday didn’t win. It was no longer about rushing to meetings or checking off lists—the weather simply refused to be ignored.

Do you remember your favourite Monsoon munchies?

After days of punishing heat and stifling humidity, the rain felt like a benediction. The scent of petrichor rose from the earth like steam, grounding and deeply familiar. I stood by the window for a while, just watching—there’s something about the first good rain that brings with it a sense of reset.

And with it came cravings that felt more like an echoing longing for a long-lost feeling. This wasn’t just for food, but for the kind of comfort food that belongs to days like these. In my family, the start of the monsoon is always marked by kheer-pooda—a simple, sweet rice pancake that’s fried golden, its edges crisp and centers tender. It’s more ritual than recipe, and I’ve grown to associate it with rainy days and stories told over tea.

Soon after, I found myself grating onions, slicing potatoes, and heating mustard oil—until it began to smoke. Bhajiyas were next: humble, delicious and perfect. Dunked in spicy chutney, they hit all the right notes.

These cravings aren’t typical: they’re overridden by a sense of longing—perhaps for a distant, fleeting memory of a joyous thunderstorm in a long-forgotten childhood evening. As the playlist at home switched to Shubha Mudgal, I whipped up a bowl of Bengali-style khichuri, topped with ghee and paired with crisp begun bhaja and papad.

There are other items too, which the mind takes you to at times. In previous such spells of midsummer showers, I found solace in dal vadas with coconut chutney, a piping hot dabeli, or even a vada pav—eaten standing in the rain during my childhood in Mumbai. There’s a particular kind of joy in food that makes you feel like a five-year-old again, watching clouds roll in with masala-stained fingers.

What struck me most that day, though, was how the feeling wasn’t mine alone. All across our apartment complex, kitchens had begun to echo the same emotions. You could hear the sizzle of frying pans, the aroma of heeng and ginger wafting from one home to another, and the shrill whistles of pressure cookers at work. The warmth of comfort food was everywhere. Though we were all in our separate homes, we were sharing the same kind of day: a private celebration with citywide resonance.

I remembered reading something by Krish Ashok in his book, Masala Lab, that our craving for deep-fried food when it rains isn’t just emotional; it’s biological. Less sunlight lowers serotonin levels, and fried food acts as a kind of edible serotonin substitute. It lifts you, and is comforting. It makes sense, then, why those bhajiyas felt so necessary. They weren’t an indulgence: they were medicinal, and for the occasional indulgence, I’d leave it at that.

Yet another dish that I intricately crave is chana chaat—not the kind you make at home, but the one sold from street carts in Mumbai, usually near the sea. It’s a simple dish on paper: boiled black chana, still warm, is tossed in hot butter and mixed with chopped onions, tomatoes, coriander and green chilies. For me, the memory is always anchored at the Bandra Bandstand—chaat in one hand, the other struggling to hold on to a wind-bent umbrella.

In Delhi, the equivalent of this is our beloved city staple—chhole bhature. You find it everywhere—one that cuts across age, class or time. It’s the kind of comfort that holds steady in every season— but in the rain, it transforms. The first downpour makes the city smell of wet earth and memory. And suddenly, cholle-bhature isn’t just food; it’s a ritual. For me, Sitaram Diwan Chand’s in Paharganj is the infallible one.

As we chase comfort in new places and modern lives, it’s the small things that often bring us back. This Monday, it was a sudden midsummer shower, and the smell of fried dough carried on the wind. And just like that, you realise: the city still remembers how to find joy—in food, rain, and the shared language of taste.