THE UNBEARABLE WETNESS OF BEING

It's been raining pretty much continuously over the week end. Overcast skies have been shedding their watery burdens on us.

Trains are either running late or not at all.

Auto-rickshaws are either refusing to ply or over-charging diabolically.

Buses are either stuck full of people or stuck in potholes-disguised-as-puddles.

Clothes are not drying.

Courier services are not delivering on time. When I had a spat with Pafex couriers (a branch of the famed Fedex) about a parcel that was supposed to reach me a week back, the rain was blamed. But when I saw the poor drenched delivery person, clutching my bubble-wrapped parcel in his wet, wet hands, I hadn't the heart to rant at him.

If this was Kolkata drowning under non-stop rains, people would have woken up on Monday, peeped through the window pane, yawned, dived under the bedsheet, and curled up for another snooze till mid-morning and a cup of tea beckoned.

But this is Mumbai.

So we wake up.

See the rain (in fact, can't see too far out of the window because of the rain).

Heat water in the geyser, take a warm/hot/boiling bath (WHY? WHY? WHY TAKE A WARM BATH 365 DAYS A YEAR, IRRESPECTIVE OF HEAT AND SUMMER AND SEASONS????AND WHY TAKE A HOT BATH WHEN YOU ARE GOING TO STAY WET AND MISERABLE FOR THE REST OF THE DAY ANYWAY?)

Gobble down breakfast, wrap up in raincoats, unfurl our umbrellas (all the better to poke other people in crowded buses and trains).

And step out into the friendly neighbourhood ankle/knee/waist-deep puddle.

That's Mumbai for you!!! The city that never sleeps. Also, the city that never stays dry.

RAIN DICTIONARY

DEPRESSION
Not just the low-pressure zones in the sky that invite the heavy rain-clouds and the monsoon, but the hollow feeling in my stomach when I look at the still-wet washing hanging on sagging lnes inside rooms where they have no business to be. Wet clothes should dry fast and smell fresh and sunny, not go on hanging for ever.

DEBRIS
Is the muck that rises up to greet your feet (or ankles, or knees, or waist - depending on the water level) when you wade from job to home, or anywhere to anywhere.

DECISION
To take the raincoat or the umbrella? The foldable brolly or the huge one with the hook-like handle that always gets stuck in other people's bags? Whatever I decide is ineffectual anyway, because the monsoon has a mind of its own. And a heavy downpour can throw cold water on all my decisions.

DEVILRY
The sheer cussedness of auto-richshaw drivers who are always zipping up and down, but never where you want to go. In monsoon, along with dengue and malaria, auto-rickshaw refusals reach epidemic proportions. Even if you have tons of grocery bags on your arms, or wet-and-wailing children in your arms. They'll never go where you ask them to, but always stop and pick up the next person.

DESPERATION
Personified by me when I am standing in the pouring rain, trying to flag down an auto, with an ineffectual umbrella in one hand and the aforesaid tons of grocery bags on the other hand, getting horribly late for home.

DELINQUENCY
Personified by monsoon-mad Mumbaikars who seem to be in love with this misery-pouring season. As Obelix would say, "These Mumbaikars are crazy!"

DEFIANCE
Me arguing with the above-mentioned mad phalanx and saying, "Monsoon, huh? The sooner it is over, the better. And anyway, why doesn't it just go and rain on the lakes, instead of messing up my life?"

DELIGHT
Is a fast-forward to a future when the lakes are full and the sun is shining.

Care to add some more words to the list?

SURPRISED BY BEAUTY

You are sitting-sweating in a BEST bus, caught in a traffic jam on the Western Express Highway. You fidget, wiggling your toes encased in ‘rainy-season sandals’, grimacing at the feel of dirty wetness and street slime. The ‘synthetic-material’ kurta (another monsoon-must) is damp and uncomfortable against your back and your lap is clammy with the wet umbrella. Squinting against the drizzle you look out of the window, looking at the sad scattered mounds of plastic and debris - the dirty suburban underbelly of the city exposed by the rains. Nothing new.

And then, you raise your eyes beyond the bedraggled bulidings, and you are suddenly transported. The grey clouds have descended low, partly hiding the green peaks of the small hills of the Western Ghats in the distance. The grey softly drifts across the green, merging, separating, creating misty patterns like a child’s watercolour. You never noticed that dull grey and drab green could offer such luminous variety. And even as you look, the hazy-breathtakingly-lovely horizon is obliterated as the rain fastracks from drizzle to downpour. Nothing new.

But, your feet sliding in the Mumbai muck, shrugging your shoulders into your already-dripping raincoat, you feel blessed by this sudden surprise gift of monsoon beauty.

WASSUP, RAIN?

A few weeks ago, I blogged about hating the rains. This was followed by an inexplicable, and insufferable, hot and dry spell.

Feeling like a chastised Cassandra, I vowed not to blog about rain again till it, er, rained again, a lot, that is. I began to have visions of sweaty summers acutely panting for water, and, of course, I blamed myself for the drought-ful catastrophe. (When I was young I would always blame myself if I watched a match on TV and the team I supported lost – as they inevitably seemed to do. I guess this was a similar impulse.) I kept feeling horribly gulity, imagining accusing fingers pointing at me, raining insults, ra(i)nting and raving, "How dare you demean the rain-gods with your scurrilous posts? Begone, you scum of the (dry) earth, we banish you and your parchments to the parched rainless desert. That will be your just deserts."

Well, now it’s raining again, and I’m too thankful to crib, at least for the moment.

MUMBAI MONSOON - I : IT'S RAINING...AD INFINITUM

Mumbai has two seasons – sweat and wet. In summer, people sweat it out; in winter (that’s a joke) people sweat it out a little less; and in monsoon, people wet it out (as well as sweat it out under their raincoats).

It’s been raining for the past one week, with no sign of ever stopping, and already I’ve forgotten what the sun looks like. On some days a pale sun peeps out timidly, like a sick child wanting to get out of bed, before dark thunderous looking clouds (like an angry scowling nurse) chase it back under the covers.

Back in Kolkata, a day or two of heavy rain would mean that schools and colleges would declare rainy-day holidays and we could all sit cosily watching the rain from our windows or balconies.

But in Mumbai, nobody has the time to stand and stare, or sit cosily in an armchair. Everybody’s up and running: people going to work armed with umbrellas, women in trendy transparent raincoats and waterproof make-up, plastic-coated children bending under the combined weight of books and raindrops.

Rain is a fact of life from June to September, and everybody in Mumbai faces it matter-of-factly. Many, incredibly, claim to love the rainy season.

I, however, just CAN NOT. I have many many cribs about monsoon and wet clothes and wet smells, but there are four monsoon-months’ worth of blogposts left, so I’ll save my cribs for another rainy day.

And so, the rains go on, endlessly….

SUMMER OF 2008

It’s official. My and my elder daughter’s summer vacation ends tomorrow. Mumbai’s summer of 2008 ends the day after; the weather department has declared the arrival-date of the monsoon (give or take a few days; weather and weathermen are not very reliable). In fact, it has raining gustily for the past few days, but that's the PRE-MONSOON downpours, insist the weathermen (as if that made any difference - Wet is WET is WET).

Though I always look forward to regaining my working-mom status (being a stay-at-home mom stresses me out totally - it's too much of hard work) and spending a few hours away from my demanding duo, I also love the summer holidays.

Here are a few random reasons why:

I can spend the whole day with my daughters (a mixed blessing, though!). We eat together, I tell them stories, watch stuff together, feed them when they are busy playing, build tents for them to play house-house in, take them to the park to play, take them to the shops to shop, sit them on the kitchen counter when I'm cooking and allow them to shell eggs and stir mixtures. I so tired at the end of the day that I usually fall asleep while putting them to sleep. BUT I WOULDN'T HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY!

I can have countless, endless hug-athons with my daughters.

I can ditch my contact lenses (for professional use only) for geeky glasses.

I can cook to my heart’s content (I have to: the maid goes on leave – another mixed blessing!). Out comes the cook-books, my brain goes on overdrive planning menus, shopping for the ingredients and my daughters excitedly accompany me in these culinary adventures, from the market to the kitchen-counter to the dining table.

I can gorge on mangoes and black jamuns, my fave fruits! My daughters love picking up raw mangoes which fall unheeded from the many mango trees in the neighbourhood, and I love pickling them.

From our bedroom window, I can watch (with the spouse and kids) the green hills of the National Park come alive with the flame-red flowers of the krishnachura (gulmohar) - surely the loveliest of all summer-sights?

I can read/surf/blog past midnight without worrying about getting up early in the mornings…

…but that’s about to end. With the coming of a new season (monsoon) and a new session (at school and college), this summer is over.