The rains have never fazed anyone in Mumbai. No matter how heavy and continuous the downpour, life went on. People donned their Duckbacks, put on their gumboots, clutched on to their umbrellas and got on with their day. Back when we were students, if our car got stuck in water, we (in our pristine school uniforms) used to gleefully get out and push, arriving at school late, wet, muddy, bedraggled and gloriously happy.
Of course, days of nonstop deluge could (and still do) cause havoc on the Bombay locals, often forcing people to get down and walk along the flooded tracks, but it was all par for the course. At night, studying by the light of a goose-neck lamp in the otherwise dark and vast veranda, I used to listen to the wind and the rain hammer at the large bamboo chicks making them slam back and forth like the sails of some ancient sailing warship. This, too, was when millions of termites used to take their single nuptial flight – and fly straight into the lamp, shedding their gossamer golden wings as they wriggled about and got themselves roasted. (No, I did not sample them!)
One of the highpoints was, of course, our afternoon picnics at the lakes – Tulsi and Vihar – glimmering a dark cloud-silver in the verdant Borivali National Park. We would settle down adjoining a bustling little stream hurrying its way to the lake, and tuck into aloo-paranthas and aam-ka achaar, admiring the giant bejewelled webs of the wood spiders that were strung across gaps in the foliage.
Earlier on, in Madras (Chennai), in the ’60s, the largest garden in our complex would flood, turning into a vast lake or dangerous river like the Amazon or Brahmaputra. It had to be intrepidly crossed. Eyes peeled for piranha, I would sally forth, only to be brought up short by a raft of vicious red ants grimly floating straight for me; talk about getting ants in your pants. Ignominiously, I turned and fled. My sister still remembers the boils she got from wading in that dirty water. Occasionally, there would be the cyclones that struck the coast, churning up the Bay of Bengal and dumping sea fans, corals and cowries (and one a seahorse skeleton) on the beach.
Here in Delhi, it was such a let-down. That first year, in September, I remember asking someone, ‘So when do the monsoons break here?’ I got a surprised look, ‘The monsoons – but they are over!’
‘What? You mean that shower we had in July?’
‘Yes.’ Good grief! What was worse, here if it rained for 15 minutes, life stopped. Help would not turn up, the electricity would trip, phones and TV stopped working et al. Only the wanton calls of the swashbuckling Jacobin cuckoos could lift up your spirits as they duelled, while the peacocks showed off in the Nicholson cemetery next door, dancing all day. Once, on the Ridge, 200 raincoat yellow bullfrogs, while serenading their beloveds and kicking each other like stallions, piled over, nearly drowned their ladies. Of course, the Yamuna would flood from time to time, frothing, roaring and racing past, but more due to deluges upstream than here.
So, it was good, even if risky sometimes, to escape to the hills nearby: where ferns and epiphytes festooned the pines and deodars, mushrooms and toadstools glowed in the undergrowth, and spider webs turned into pearl necklaces. But here it could thunder down for days at a time, making you wonder uneasily about how many hillsides had come crashing down in mudslides, blocking roads. Was Shimla still standing or had it tumbled into the valley below?
Goa, in the rains, has been waxed eloquent about. Apart from the emerald paddy-fields, what struck me most forcefully was how enraged the sea became. Massive granite grey rollers would thunder and thump down on the beach, ravenously making for the (now shut) beach shacks that had dared claim territory that was theirs. So different from the frilly little wavelets that kissed your toes in winter.
And when the monsoon retreats, it is time to look out for the dragonflies – glittering like multi-coloured biplanes, each one a ferocious hunter and ever ready for a dogfight with a rival.
This year, thanks to El-Nino, the monsoon has been late but then who in this country has ever been punctual?
