Mumbai Rains

This monsoon I spent a month in Mumbai. I felt why are the kids in school only taught 'rain rain go away'- boring repetitive stuffs!! sometimes rain is real fun. I was in the IIT campus. The trees were greener than ever. In Delhi, we usually don't get to see this greenery. In summer the leaves anyway turn brownish. I was asked several times by my parents, who happen to worry a lot, to carry my umbrella to Mumbai. In fact, I had to search a lot for it before I could exhume it from a pile of old newspapers buried deeply in one corner of the lowest rack of my cupboard. And in the first week itself in Mumbai, I found using it more than I did in the entire two years I spent in Delhi. And carrying an umbrella in Delhi is possibly old-fashioned, we don't really care when it rains. In Mumbai, one needs to carry it even when it does not rain, it is like a break from the incessant rain, so it can resume anytime. More interestingly, carrying an umbrella is indeed a fashion there, people having different sizes of umbrellas. The choice of carrying one depends on how heavy the downpour is.

Catching a sight of the sun is like a phenomenon. I possibly could see the sun on my third day in Mumbai, honestly! And don't get psyched if it ever happens that you get hurt by a tree!! I found some branch falling off or entire coconut leaf falling with a loud bang a few meters away.

The rain gives you some time, it may be less than a minute for you to run. All on a sudden, you start listening to a sound if it's heavy, but you can't feel it. The rain is approaching towards you and you need to run particularly if you are not carrying the umbrella on a rare occasion. And then the rain reaches you.

I was given an accommodation which is close to the hill side, there is indeed a small hill close by. The top gets surrounded by the clouds when it rains, it gets all white. But the best among all was when I was at TIFR in Colaba and it was just awesome to keep looking at the sea when it was raining. The rain seemed to have the sky immersed into the sea water at the horizon.