Here comes the rain again…

I think I need a refresher course on that one. “Raining on my head like a memory” is the part I remember best of the Eurhythmics song. And here, in the big bad city that is Mumbai, memory is indeed long. It rained cats, dogs and various other creatures only last week, sending local Mumbaikars into a tizzy about flooding, getting home on crowded trains and drowning in open manholes. And everyone re-invoked the omnipresent spectre of the nightmare that was July 26 2005, with its unprecedented flooding, house and hill collapses and destroyed homes. More, people got another chance to throw stones at the much-maligned local civic authorities, who didn’t quite function up to par last year, making an awful situation even worse.

So this time around, when it rained, admittedly rather violently, last week, there was much ado about what seemed like a bit of an anti-climax, especially when it stopped. The weather had been hot and steamy and sweaty, and then there was this blast of fresh, cool air blowing away the summer fug, pulling people out of the sinkhole of lethargy and discontent many had sunk into. The breeze blew out the smog, the pollens and the blues, the rain washed clean streets and grimy roofs, showing off the colourful paint of homes that had not been seen since it had been applied. Even as commuters cursed and drivers darkly, direly muttered about road conditions, the city rejoiced, revelling in the rain. By the end of the second day of ominous clouds gathering and letting go their heavy loads with little warning, there was a low-toned chorus of “Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day…”

And then, just when post-mortems and cross-examinations were being done, the clean-up moves criticised and the city’s municipal commissioner pilloried, the rain did, indeed, go away. For about a week now, the atmosphere has become heavy and oppressive once again. Move more than an eye, and you are drenched with the fluids from your own pores. As it pours out, laden with salt and tinged with the grime from the pollution-glommed air, you exchange notes on how much you sweated yesterday as compared to your personal sweat factor the day before and you agree with your neighbour at home, on the train, at work, wherever, that it couldn’t possibly be worse in that enticing destination called Hell. Now we all wish it would rain!

But then, remember the old saw about life being greener on the other side, whichever side that may happen to be? Rain and you want sun; sun and rain is longed for. If you have both, there will be a rainbow – and you will probably complain about the pot at the end of it being filled with tadpoles instead of gold!