Oh October.

The October heat, which lasted for just under a day, dissolved into a downpour.

I took an auto home and the tyres made squeaking sounds against the slick streets. The plump, glistening raindrops splashed onto cars and tired heads. I stood under a tree, waiting to cross the street, bathing in the water that rolled off the sleeping leaves. The people around me jumped across the wet mud, hoping to not get it as little as possible on their leather shoes. Others who had perhaps decided to wear the same trousers the next day muttered angrily at the unexpected change in their plans. The sky looked confused, the blue and the black fighting it out amidst all the jagged lightning.

The monsoons which Bombay assumed were gone returned briefly to a strange combination of relief and irk.

I have seen that face in the rain.

Little rivulets running down the sides, warm and cold all at once. The melting black eyes, like cut up pieces of dark fruit, blinking away the raindrops.

I have walked behind that face, staring a little too obviously at the neck.
I have marveled, more than once, at the glistening tense muscles holding their own; the sliver of brown between the nape and the shirt collar peeking at me.

I have seen that face in the rain.
In the quiet privacy of my mind, I keep looking back at it. Like a child and a firecracker that holds all the mystery; awe and fear holding hands. 

Every corner I turned – the sky was a different colour.

The cab I was in drove past a school and I looked up at an orange-pink sky. The children trickled out of the school. The tiny ones, whose school bags where bigger than them, wavered a little under all that intellectual weight. They looked ecstatic on seeing their mothers who’d come to pick them. They dropped their things and began to run about in circles.

As we drove on the sea link, the sky soon became blue, with only a slight hint of the dark side. We crossed all the young couples sitting on their stationery bikes. The sea wind drove their hair into a frenzy. They had to chase after their scarves, which hopped away with the fierce breeze.

As we turned onto the all-too-familiar street, where trees swayed lazily and the home winked at us from a distance, the sky turned a dark graphite grey. People quickened their pace and cars rushed past so as to reach home before the it started to rain.

I walked into the building under the slate coloured expanse above me, with all its stars tucked away. There was a sense of doom to the whole thing, but only in the nicest possible way.

There was nothing romantic about the rain today. Nothing poetic even.

Muddy water flooded up the streets. I walked through this, holding my breath, convinced that I will slip and fall to my death in some open pothole. A pregnant woman was reduced to tears by the high-handed cab drivers and the buses that were bursting apart. People kept walking past, throwing rubbish into the water. Runaway slippers and plastic wrappers were floating past me.

It was like we were at the epicentre of a large drain and were trying to get out before the toxic waste killed us.
After a point, the gutters and the street became one. It wasn't even just an analogy by the end of the evening.

The rains failed me today. Instead of a surreal story to tell, they left me with some clammy bitterness that I had to wash away with soap once I got home. 

The seasons are shifting around us. The umbrellas are flaring up all around, rudely woken up for their catnaps.

The people are all hidden behind their rubber masks and rain caps. Their trouser bottoms drag across the ground, clinging to the mulch. Their angry faces glisten in the rain, as they stand begging the auto drivers to take them home. They trudge home, angry and helpless, only to come back the next day.

The people, who were whining about the lack of rain, are now whining about their damp denims.

At nights, the city sleeps fitfully. It dreams of delayed trains and persistent coughs.

The children, on the terraces of the buildings opposite ours, are flying kites. From where I am, they look like different coloured dots, paint stains on palette. The kites get intertwined with each other and flutter around aimlessly. They are beyond the control of the children, I assume. The children come together and move away, playing and talking, an inadvertent choreography of sorts.

The sky looms behind the glossy sky scrapers. It is going to rain. It has been a long day and I have watched the sky change colours. The dull yellow morning light quickly gave way to the monsoon sky and now the mournful colours swirl around; the sky divided into multiple shades of grey.

The children slowly disappear and the building tops stand bare under the steely rain. The rain starts out harsh, then backs down just a little bit. There are tiny faces, or maybe only in my head, at the windows in the distance. A kite peeks from behind a tree, left behind and forgotten.

The street lights come on and it looks darker outside from here than it probably is. The silhouettes of the dancing leaves beckon, offering my imagination their untold stories.

Quivering sheets of rain on the other side of the glass wall. Eighteen floors below, white-and-purple trains run along, the rain wetting the disgruntled people that hang on for dear life. There are pebble sized hail stones that hit the glass wall hard enough to get our attention but not enough to crack the glass.

The cars, that look tiny from where we are standing, appear to move at manic speeds, getting to places before the angry rain has its way. Ant-like people scramble for a place to stand.

It gets darker and our reflections in the glass become more defined. A row of faces that stare back in an eerie manner. Hovering heads and disconnected bodies swimming in a sea of discontentment.

That sinking feeling which comes with knowing that the place where you want to be is just out of reach.

Take me to sea and we can sit and watch the sky covering us, like a large quilt speckled with stars. The water will hit against the tripods, making crashing sounds at a distance. We’ll be able to see feet dangling as other people watch what we’re watching, but probably take away, from it, something completely different.

The air will be salty and the rain will put out the many cigarettes along the sea face. It will gently mock the men who are trying to light one, as their female companions cup their hands over it blocking out the wind. The sand will find its way into my slippers and between my toes.

Cars will fly by behind us: the evening cacophony and the clapping of rubber soles on stone. A dog will come and sit with us, and we’ll play with it until it gets tired. The middle of the sea will light up for a brief moment, the blinking red light of a plane above, and we will notice this and smile for no reason.

Oh Bombay!

Through a dusty car window peppered with raindrops, the city passes us by.

The people, either running along the sea face or sitting with their backs to us hidden behind umbrellas, look strangely determined in their endeavours. The men with caps turned backwards strut around, fish mouthed because of the perpetual whistle.

The sea mirrors the deep orange shade that gets associated with evenings in Bombay. Despite the mild rain, the fiery colours of the setting sun push their way through, onto the water and the sidewalk. The children writing on the sidewalk with chalk look like they have halos, the light playing subtle tricks.

The car stops at a signal and the city rushes at its windows; the increasingly aggressive rain and a fleet of beggars. They knock and beg, pointing at their chapped mouths and concave stomachs. We look the other way, but the keep tapping at the window, the rain water trickling down their gummy faces.

By the time we hit the suburbs, the golden light changes into a dark blue one and the rain comes down in a torrent. The city, now a collage of multi coloured umbrellas, bickers quietly against a backdrop of muddy roads and tired faces.

The rain continues to come down on us, even when we get out of the car, and another fairly typical day is behind us.

And another monsoon post.

Rain - humid smoky Bombay rain.

We watch it bring down the blue plastic sheets on autos; furtive couples breathe while the unkind city looks the other way for a while.

Water streams across the streets. Tea coloured water with pieces of rubbish floating in it.
A bearded man sells peanuts in newspaper cones. He holds it out to passers-by, calling out the price. Nobody stops.

A child stands at the side of the road and pretends to be an aeroplane. Children do that, arms stretched wide and guttural sounds is all that it takes. His mother begs him to come under the umbrella.

The black umbrellas bob against the beige buildings. The garish ones scream for attention. Neither keep you from getting drenched.

Lazy Sunday afternoon rain. We watch the scene from behind dark windows with our hands wrapped around ceramic coffee mugs.

The thoughts all blur into each other - the reckless children on rainy afternoons, the people, the smells. There is a sense of deja-vu.
The days now all roll into one big burly monsoon. 

All rained out.

It's raining; black murky toxic rain.

Children with transparent raincoats and dirty fingernails splash puddle water on each other, lacking both the playful edge and the childish spite.
People look out of their windows, their expressions reflect both relief and dread.

Our cab whizzes past, spraying dirt and water on unsuspecting pedestrians. They curse and shake their umbrellas in our direction, angrily.

The traffic clogs at a bend in the road and the honking cars create the harshest sound you can imagine.

It continues to rain; dark drops from an angry sky.

The rains have arrived, whipping up a blend of all the possible monsoon cliches.
A time where we all sigh and say how great a book and coffee would be, but we still go out in the muck and complain till our voices die out. 

Pre-monsoon thoughts.

The weather mellowed down a little today; my sepia toned world took on shades of grey. I ambled along inside of my head, examining a stray thought on a whim, as the cars zipped past in blurs of expensive reds and blacks.

In the suburban by lanes, last year, I ate raw mango wrapped in newspaper. Behind me, a storm was brewing, and the evening light changed from golden to a menacing black by the time by the time the last mango piece was eaten. I remember reaching home and writing by the window. It didn’t rain however, just stayed like that until night came.

I remember walking on the cobbled streets at Fountain, looking through all the delicious looking books that smell of another time covered with translucent plastic in preparation for the rains, your big blue umbrella doubling as a walking stick while you haggled with ease. I remember walking away, books tucked under your arm; the world around us walking along an edge, where the monsoons would soon storm in, like thieves in an old woman’s house.

There is a salty smell I associate with this time; when the sky loses its cruel summer edge and the cloudy edges soften, allowing only thin glimmers of the sun; the few early June days when the monsoon hasn’t quite arrived but another summer has passed us by.

I sit back and take this smell in, and it fills me up with a dull sense of wonder. I am not a big fan of the rains, but the build up always delights me greatly.