This is my 40th year in Mumbai. The monsoon clouds already arrived and departed without emptying their contents. It did rain in fits and starts. But we did know the rain received would not be adequate till the next rainy season. Enough warnings were issued in the media, the skies threatened, the clouds darkened, thunder rumbled, but as June, July and September arrived and disappeared last year, we were still looking up at the sky. The more religious among us joined in the yagnas to please the rain gods, but in keeping with modern trends, they failed to oblige us.
This year too, days came and went. I expected a lot from June, but it fizzled out. No rains. I followed TV weather forecasts from the world over. Ha, my faith began to shake. It rained in Chad (where the hell is that?) and Outer Mongolia, but so far, a few drops of rain fell in Mumbai and the rest of Western India. Mind you, nearly 18 months gone and not a sign of the monsoon!
The absence of rains has never deterred me and my elder sister from playing our own, originally invented weather games. She lives in South Mumbai. Every morning after receiving the morning paper, we compare notes on the temperatures in South Mumbai and the suburbs. For instance, it could be 34 degrees Celsius at Kemp’s Corner and 31 degrees Celsius at Kandivili, which meant she had won. We note this down and file the information for the subsequent days, till the month is over and the averages checked.
This was not a new game, but it started several years while we were at school. ‘The Hindu’ was our daily staple diet for information and we played the temperature game from there, what a thrill to note down that Rentachintala often topped list of maximum temperatures closely beating Kurnool and the rest. We never visited these places, but the temperatures noting game provided our morning thrills for many years. It continued when both of us settled down in Mumbai, but the habit of checking the temperatures continued. Normally, Kandivili went ahead in maximum temperature and also heavier rainfall, which gave me endless delight. By the time the rainfall ended in early October, the suburbs were clearly ahead.
Remember that late July heavy rainfall day, when life stopped in Mumbai? It was with great difficulty I travelled from Khalsa college, Matunga, to Bandra, braving the cloudburst. It was an experience I will not forget in a hurry, and the consolation was that the suburbs clearly thrashed the city. My Kemp’s Corner sister could not believe it had rained so much in the suburbs, and so little in the city. It was a day of triumph for the humble suburbanites who soundly thrashed the city slickers. How did I reach home? Partly by bus, partly by cab, then walked a bit, fell into a ditch, but always holding my head high; here was a hero who had out walked and outmaneuvered the city slickers.
In the years to come this would be the heroic story I shall tell my grandchildren.
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V. Gangadhar
The writer is a well-known satirist. [/column]