If you know me enough, you know by now that I love Bombay. I’m someone who can croon “Yeh Hai Mumbai Meri Jaan”, whatever time and mood. This love for Bombay is probably unfounded, but maybe a deep introspection
would help understand it.
When people speak of the city with fondness, they tend to dwell on the rains. Rains. So many people seem to love them. So often romanticized in literature, it feels as if this season just exists to bring into being the poets within us. It makes us long for someone we love, often someone we’ve lost. Maybe it’s a longing for someone we don’t know yet, a hope that we’re holding onto. Or it could just be a longing for a hot cup of Chai and a plate of Pakoras. Not everything needs to be deep.
Now, I’m not a person who enjoys the monsoon. I like staying indoors during the rains, because the wet makes me a crappy person. Walking to work during the rains is such a task! You’re all wet within the first 5 minutes, and it takes forever for the clothes to dry. But, Mumbai doesn’t stop. For anything. You can take a break for a bit, but you do need to show up wherever you need to. The city doesn’t let you give up.
As kids, we used to have “Monsoon holidays” in Coorg. It pours cats & dogs here and travelling to school is unsafe. As an introvert who hated going to school, these holidays were a bliss. It is so inculcated, these holidays, that the rains in Bombay make me long for them. Days that I can just sit and stare outside. Days that bring forward emotions I didn’t know I had.
Maybe the rains are what make me feel at home in Bombay.
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