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The monsoons arrive each year as a welcome relief from the increasingly sweltering summer and then stay on for four long months like an unwelcome guest, exasperating every tired nerve in our drenched bodies. We all love rains but the limits of your affection are truly stretched if you live in a city not built for rains. Apart from the poetic splashing of waves alongside Marine Drive or Gateway of India, the rest of the city is a swamp, wearing you down. The rains arrive stealthily each monsoon, rarely giving you a dose of its seemingly unintentional fury. It gathers strength slowly, doling out regular doses of big fat droplets. Then suddenly like an uncomfortable pause in a horror movie, everything pauses in mid-action and you stare at the sky expecting the next big flood. But nothing happens for at least a week and you almost wish for a deluge, when in fact you are hoping for the monsoon to resume normal activity.
It usually happens when you have the all-important meeting at office, or the first important submission in college, or that week in school when you most-hated Hindi teacher is on a sick leave. Coincidentally all elements of nature combine – the high tide in the Arabian Sea and the full onslaught of the monsoon in mid-season – wreck havoc. The first casualty is the trains; belonging almost to the Victorian era, the lifeline of the city is snapped. Schools and colleges close their doors immediately sending delighted kids home. Offices grudgingly let their employees go home when the things are at its worst. These are the testing times for the city, as everyone seems to be heading home in the same direction at the same time. Tempers are running high and the rain does little to cool them. Water is rising slowly and you soon are waist deep in the middle of an arterial road.
If you are already home, you learn to forget expecting family and friends to return at their normal hours and instead hope that they are in a safe place where they can spend the night. The safe places are usually the confines of a crowded bus or the stuffy backseat of a taxi. Of course, the ones with tiny ounces of adventurism dare to walk the ten odd miles home. Walk is the wrong term when you are really wading in water of varying depths from dubious sources. The water quality is soon confirmed by some floating shit; it’s a wonder how an epidemic is miles away. You pass some delighted urchins swimming in the water or some enterprising soul who has brought out a canoe (where does he use his canoe otherwise?).
It also can lead to some hilarious incidents. My friend calls me up on my cell from a crowded bus during one such downpour, telling me that it will be another couple of hours until she can make it. After hanging up, I suddenly remember that I can ask her to come to my friends’ place instead to make it easier. The number she calls from is still stored, probably the cell phone of the person next to her. I call up and say “err…hello, can I talk to the person who just called me?” Almost a grunt, he asks me, “Which one, the one in the red t-shirt or the one with the green dress?” I am taken aback, I usually don’t remember the color of the clothes I wear, how the hell can I know the color of my friend’s clothes whom I haven’t seen today. I take a wild guess. “Green dress?” I reply, knowing that she might not want to be seen outside in red. Thankfully, my guess was right. She told me later that at least 4-5 people had asked for his phone, most of them girls so he couldn’t refuse.
Such is the tale of a Mumbai monsoon’s fury.
by Patrix | on Wednesday, August 4th, 2004 at 11:05 pm | 
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August 5th, 2004 at 8:35 am reply
Patrix…was just discussing this with a few folks last night!!! Its such a brainless thing if you ask me…every year going through the same exercise…wonder why no one can fix it…
August 5th, 2004 at 10:14 am reply
I miss Mumbai monsoons. The rains in Bangalore are not the same. : (
August 5th, 2004 at 10:24 am reply
Yogu - it just a mindless exercise that we go thru each year..everyone forgets about it once its over.
Elysia - Downpour was a word invented for mumbai rains :)
August 5th, 2004 at 10:29 am reply
the infrastructure came to a stand still, but the people didn’t. there is something amazing about mumbaikars that no matter what - they will turn up.
Yesterday I went into teach - and 70% of the class was there. there is usually a 90% attendance. But they turned up.
But the roads are a complete mess. There is about an hour’s delay - not more than that. I remember people taking 8-10 hours to get home - and that was like 10 years ago. things have improved, but not enough:)
Harini
August 5th, 2004 at 10:46 am reply
hey patrix…i am trying out commenting on ur blog…
and by the way…u could have just asked him to call out ur frnds name instead of taking a wild guess…buddhu!!!!
August 5th, 2004 at 11:45 am reply
Harini - i dunno if that is a compliment for Mumbaikars although we like to think of it as one. But somehow I think, we are desensitized to the city’s problems and becoming too apathetic.
XX - Knowing me, buddhu is the right word :)wonder why I didn’t think of that.
August 5th, 2004 at 12:27 pm reply
monsoon ! aaahhh… last week it was “Rain de” .. n this week its “Rehn de” :| .. yeah probably i should “rehn de”..
August 5th, 2004 at 5:52 pm reply
the monsoon is not limited to mumbai- we in miami are having flooding and traffic jams….power outages……..to a much more miniscule degree - but in the land of instant gratification- even that 1% inconvenience seems too much.
August 5th, 2004 at 6:33 pm reply
Someone - LOL. That was a good one.
m - As you said, it is just 1% inconvenience..so just live with it. think of Bangaladesh when things become unbearable :)
August 5th, 2004 at 8:53 pm reply
yes, this happens year after year… one of those Bombay rituals… people wait for it, in fact - the big day when you walk home along the train tracks… and ever noticed, rain in Bombay is not ‘downpour’.. it is ’sidepour’ - horizontal rain :)
and Bombay goes on…. whatever happens, rain or bomb…. compliment desensitisation whatever, the city is amazing…
August 5th, 2004 at 11:01 pm reply
Charu - I guess the rains pick up the sea’s powerful enery for the horizontal rain. I never dispute the awesome-ness of Mumbai :)
August 7th, 2004 at 10:23 pm reply
Looks like I missed a couple here (been out of sync): Been there and felt that. Circa 95-96. One particular day, my colleagues at Gammon were forced to stay back in office for a whole night since trains couldn’t move and all roads full of water. In Bombay, it hits like hell when it does.
But, I’ve also seen during May, BMC starts dredging all the drains to keep’em ‘running’. So actually the maintenance is good, but the height of drains I believe are too small for the flood.
August 9th, 2004 at 6:30 pm reply
Chetan - Mumbai’s problem unfortunately is permanent thanks to its geography and the heights of the drains, as you mention it. But there has to be a solution.