Stuck in a Moment

Yesterday afternoon there I was, stuck in a moment. It was pouring beyond the glass doors of the University and as I watched people around me preparing to get soaked before they pushed through the barrier of protection, the sound of the train suddenly replaced the zoom of cars in the student parking lot.

I was leaving Mumbai. It was the last day of my summer break and my plane for the United States was departing that evening. And so, typical of my nature, I had about twenty bags in all shapes and sizes strewn about me on the floor of the tiny green room I had begun to call home. I am a perpetual bag woman and in this instance, my suitcases had already been shipped off, filled to the 50 pound limit with kurtis and salwaars. The monsoon rain was coming down in droves beyond my bedroom window and I knew a taxi to North Mumbai, where my uncle resided, would take at least two hours in the traffic. And all I wanted to do was pretend like I wasn’t really leaving.

I cursed my bags. I loved the rain. If I had to leave the city I had come to love as my own, then at least let me walk through its cluttered streets one last time. Every Mumbaiker has a plan of action for when the rain begins to pound down like thundering drums. The paani puri wala snaps up his plastic tarp to protect the special water made with a recipe known only to the rest of the paani puri walas in Mumbai. After moving to shield his income generating business, he pulls out an old umbrella and stands there patiently, taking a smoke or watching the droplets form puddles around his kiosk. Like the paani puri wala, there’s the corn wala, the chai wala, the phav bhaji wala, the newspaper wala, the fruit wala, the sabji wala, and so on. Each of these business men have a quick plan to cover up their living, pull up their trousers, and patiently wait under the shelter of an umbrella.

The traffic during the rain is horrendous. It is quicker to walk. Rickshaws that were dozing along the gulleys suddenly appear like a shiny army of black bugs, armed with blue tarpaulins to shield the “madums” in their saris and salwar kameez. And yet it is almost impossible to catch one of these rickshaws while you’re getting drenched to the core. They come out of nowhere and they are filled in a matter of seconds. With a city of roughly twenty million inhabitants, I suppose this makes sense. The thing about the Mumbai rains that you love and hate at once is the suddenness with which it comes. It teaches you to forget about muddy jeans and frizzy hair and just be...let it all go