Category Archives: Mumbai
Mumbai Monsoon Redux
“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”
― Bob Marley
A week after my trip to New York, I found myself back in Mumbai for a short business visit. It brought back memories of the previous two monsoon seasons that I had spent there.
I never waste a visit. So while the business side of the visit was intense, that did not mean that I could not manage to spend a few hours catching up with favorite friends, favorite haunts and the weather, frizzy hair and all. 🙂
As in previous monsoons, the vegetation had taken a bath and looked exceedingly clean, green and fresh. Beautiful!
The roads had had a nice body wash too, so although the potholes were profuse, at least the roads looked relatively cleansed.
But the unique smell of Bombay had not gone anywhere. If anything, it had acquired new powers. 🙂
I don’t know what it is, but there is certainly something about Mumbai and the monsoon. They seem to have a mutual admiration thing going on.
It makes me want to say, ‘nice to be here’. But (just to be clear), only for a very short and sweet visit!
Typical of the season, I received a warm and ultra-sultry welcome to the city when I arrived.
This was accompanied by a wet, wet, wet, rain-drenched monsoon goodbye just a few days later at the packed (I mean packed!) international airport. It was the icing on the cake, so to speak, that made the entire seasonal experience hard to forget. Good, bad and ugly coexisting without a blink – that’s the incomparable Mumbai for you. Indeed.
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The short visit helped me capture just enough Mumbai monsoon snaps for the memory bank.
[Click on one to see a slideshow].
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- Beauty outside my hotel
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- Captivating vegetation, all clean
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- Bandra bandstand in the monsoon
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- Rain, don’t hurt my car!
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- Mumbaikars enjoying the rain
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- Sea, rain and romance
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- Monsoon typical
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- After the rain, rooftop view
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- Time to go home…on the way to the airport
“For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.”
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Remember When
I have friends, colleagues and family members in the U.S., who ask me still – so, aren’t you glad to be back?
It’s been almost six months and they still ask the question!
Then, there’s the assumptive – you must be so glad to be back!
Mostly, I would guess, because so few of them would have wanted that experience that I had of living in India after years in America and they wonder how I did it.
I’m quite used to it now, this question. I’ve got the answer down pat too.
I roll my eyes and say, of course. It’s great to be back at home!
I mean it too.
But to leave it at that is an incomplete answer. The rest of it is, I’m glad to be back but I was also very fortunate to have had that experience in India.
I mean this too but I wonder if they believe me.
This last trip back to Mumbai was 95% work related. But I also got to spend a few hours of free time before and after the work week with some of my dear friends there.
I visited my old neighborhood where they still live. I remember well those much awaited, well planned Sundays there.
During the visit, something that smells awfully close to nostalgia surfaces and sets in as I cannot help but relive the good times. It’s the mind’s propensity to remember positives over negatives, that’s what it is.
“Do you remember when…?”
Those Sundays, for example. Numerous Suryanamaskars (oh, yoga!) in the morning and at eleven o’clock sharp we were ready and waiting to watch the next episode of Satyamev Jayate. Ready and comfortable with a sangria/mojito/margarita in hand, accompanied by hot pakoras and spicy peanuts.
We were ready to get immersed as Aamir laid out the pressing issue of the day. Ready to absorb, debate and applaud. Wonderful moments those, and it’s nice reflecting on them.
So, yes, of course I’m glad to be back at home.
But that does not take away from the fact that something about living as an expat in my native country for a couple of years struck a chord and touched me deeply somewhere.
Every trip back therefore has its inescapable yin and yang moments. There are those that go this is India, what do you expect?. Mixed in with them are the nostalgic ones as I once again count myself lucky to have had a short but memorable ‘India experience’.
The Yin and Yang of Life Anywhere 