The rains have arrived in Mumbai. This is of huge import - For the rest of sweltering India, for Twitter and the meme-meisters. It is also that time of year when Anu Malik’s classic is retrieved from the mists of time, dusted and hummed tunelessly by the multitudes of Mumbai-kars who are pathetically grateful for the arrival of the monsoon.
If you're a millennial your musical education may be woefully inadequate and you may be quite unaware of the epicness that is this song. This Anu Malik ditty, entirely without lyrical or musical merit of any sort is still the one that every joyous heart is spontaneously compelled to intone, come the monsoon.
On social media, the posts start to gather before the clouds. And even before it actually rains, people start out with the chai and the pakodas out of sheer anticipation.
While Mumbaikars revel (or drown) in the rain, spare a thought for the sweltering north. Here we’re still gazing up at the pitilessly sunny sky and drowning in our own sweat.
Most of the time, a set top box not receiving signal is a source of irritation and means an attempted trip to an unreachable elevated part of the home to try and change the orientation of the dish. We are much more genial when the first rains are the cause of this.
With the Mumbai rains, it’s very much a case of जान हथेली पर लेके चलना because water-logging, jammed roads, paralysed public transport and the odd open sewer or two await!
Those that hate Mumbai begin to love it. Those who already love it start to adore it! People see beauty where there is none, because Mumbai is a singularly un-lovely city. That said, I do kind of get this tweet.
Perhaps it is because of the way Bollywood has always managed to conflate the rains with love, perhaps there is no actual reason for this.
Then there are those who are like हटाओ यह प्यार और शायरी की बातें . Potholes देखे हैं ?
The first heavy rains manage to paralyse Mumbai. Every. Single. Time. And for all these years, there has been no solution to the problem.
Mumbai rain has this remorseless, unrelenting quality about it. It just rains, and rains and rains. Soon, all that unalloyed joy turns into impatience and then into entreaties to stop…just stop!
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