Awesome Mausam

Written on June 25th 2009

May was fast nearing june, temperatures were soaring in the city....The PWD Depts obsession for digging and repairing roads at the last moment reminded me of the Last minute revision done by the students during examination time . The digging continued furiously as if the labourers had been instructed to discover and uncover the lost city shanghai which was hiding beneath mumbai . I knew it that the scenes are not going to be any diffirent even this year, only this time round the blame game would be onto a new person....and if at all they run out of people to blame then, turn towards sky and blame the lord himself !!

Did you get the drift what I am a getting at ?

Yes...the elusive rain...the romantic rain...the magical rain....the saviour rain...the destroyer rain !

May 31st the first shower came from heaven much to the relief of the city people, and the MET was fast to announce that this was just a pre shower and not monsoon showers yet...I did not know that even the rain follows the procedure of a dry run before a wet spell !! For me, a drizzle was a rain, any shower was a rain . The heat wave continued to envelope the city, commuters travelling daily to work were really loosing their cool...alas on their fellow commuters !! Most of the conversations in an around the city everyday was veering to `Can you beat the heat ?'....Oh...when is it going to rain ?.....etc etc....

Finally the rain gods relented and somewhere around Mid June or so, it rained heavily...thankfully during the night. The morning after was cool and pleasant for everyone. Phew what a relief !!

The incomplete tasks of the city excavators were resulting in puddles, the BMC / Disaster Management Team (Can you believe it) already were in a huddle...Morning Tabloids were replete with news on how societies and localities are taking due care and being self sufficient, after all can the city people rely on BMC / PWD / DMT ? Families in and around low lying areas were gleefully posing with rafts / motor boats / life jackets ....The new mayor was posing with her team and the great strategy of placing water pumps in and around the city (logic beats me though, water being pumped in from where to where!!)

I was thinking to myself - is the island really sinking ? Are we on the glorified real life set of THE CASTAWAY ?? All this while the supreme office above us was having different plans altogether.....The weekend that just passed by, the city experienced very heavy downpour.

Immediately there was water logging at the usual places, tracks submerged, city life on the brink...on second thought in the sink ! People were thanking their luck that this heavy downpour was experienced on a sunday! Media was busy rummaging through previous years photo which they can again recyle and scare the poor city people ! After all, who would take the trouble to click fresh pictures when the end result remains the same ? Justified......:-)

Suddenly the romance of the rain was replaced by the fear of the deluge....

I woke up on a monday morning post the idyllic rainy sunday thanks to the sms alert from BMC - Heavy to very heavy rain fall expected within the next 48 hrs ! I dreaded just by visualizing the chaos and traffic on my way to work....My mind was already spaced out !!

Prepared and armed for the worst I stepped out on my way to work and guess what ?? the sun was shining brightly on the city !!!!

Meanwhile the BMC/DMT/PWD were sure that the rain god is from the opposition party since its sole job is to throw water on their so called good work !! Ha ha Ha

I prefer to enjoy the rain, the romance associated with it....the magic of the monsoon...the city in monsoon !!

Hold on...all this only when I dont have to travel to work, and can just be by the window side with a hot cup of Tea and a good book or a good movie for company!!

Till then Let it rain...let it rain...Let it rain.