Awesome Mausam

Awesome Mausam
A Celebration Of The Mumbai Monsoon Madness


We almost thought they would ditch us this year.But here they are...albeit a few weeks and several suicides too late.And like the cheating husband who punishes his doubting wife, monsoons 2004 are lashing down with a vengeance on the never-give-up city that almost gave up on them.
It is that same annual drama that comes to town, enacted with repititive freshness on the stage of our artificial jungle.Every year, the rains pull a Veni Vedi Vici on Mumbai, and every year, we watch with childish fascination as the sweep us off our feet, pun intended.
They are both, abhored and adored.Like they care.Love 'em or loathe 'em, they will 'barso' with contemptuous indifference all the same.To dance under their battery, to splash around in puddles, to slip and fall flat on wet streets and fracture a bone or two...they are a beautiful excuse for anything you always wanted to but never dared to do.And if you never wanted to do any of those, well, you will cherish the fractures as a reminder of these times, at that time when a third World War will be waged over water.
To combat agnosticism, all one needs to do is watch the Mumbai rain in its element.Divinity did not stop suffering for Mankind with the Crusifixon of Christ or the flight of Muhammad.It continues to cry, perhaps for us, perhaps because of us.But it cries, and cries without inhibition, because the downpour we revel in are tears from heaven.And perhaps the closest we can get to it.