Rain madness

It has been barely three days since the rain gods have undone the silver lining that binds the dark clouds and Mumbai already feels as if it has been in the throes of monsoon for weeks. Over the weekend, I had the (mis)fortune of traveling to all parts of the city and watched the monsoon saga unfold in front of eyes – some scenes were amazing and, others just blew my mind.

As late as Thursday, I was grumbling to my mother about the balmy weather and how I wished it would just pour already and douse the searing heat. I should have wished for a million dollars – by nighttime, people were running drenched on the streets, caught off-guard by the sudden onset of rains. Within minutes, the vendors had put up bright yellow -colored plastic tarpaulins over their little carts, staving off the showers they assumed would last only for a few hours, if at all. Ha! The torrential rains whipped the city all night – letting up only for a few hours of the early morning. But one could see the signs that heralded the oncoming of monsoon everywhere – the bus floors were marked with mucky imprints of shoes, umbrellas were ensconced under the shoulder of travelers, traffic cops were wearing their flimsy, shiny yellow, translucent ponchos that did not stand a chance of keeping them dry. Parts of Bombay had already flooded by this time – the compact cars struggled to wade through water that was steadily rising and creeping through the crevices into the cars. The whole city was so easily crippled by the rains – and to think, these were only the pre-monsoon showers!

Later in the morning, I happened to visit a friend in Bandra- we were sitting outside a coffeeshop at Bandstand, overlooking the sea. It was a beautiful morning – cool and refreshing breeze blew from the sea as it lashed against the rocks. As we sat drinking coffee, it got dark as the clouds glided over us and let loose once again. It became extremely windy - so much so that the umbrella we were sitting under swayed precariously before toppling over. Like a scene out of a movie, giant waves laced with white foam rose up out of the tumultuous sea and crashed over the rocks. I don’t think I will be able to forget the wondrous display of the force of nature – how humbling an experience it was!

Of course, the BMC failed to contain the water logging once again. In a classic and expected case of bureaucratic lethargy, the BMC’s false assurances that they had prepared adequately for the rains were shamelessly exposed as many parts of the city reported rising water levels and many citizens called into radio stations with reports of accidents, crawling and in some cases, non-moving traffic as a result of water logging. Yet, with great effrontery, one of the BMC officials on radio today morning claimed that there was little flooding and congestion due to the rains. He failed to mention that the fire department had SOSed the Navy to send in rescue boats to help citizens stranded in the “little flooding.” It is quite appalling that the municipal corporation of a city about the size of New York can be so ill-prepared to deal with a crisis that it faces annually with predictable regularity. How many times do they have to do it wrong before they get it right?

(Joke: How many BMC officials does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

Ans: For your request, you have to first fill in a form, with black ink, deposit it, then follow-up on the file, ensure the supervisor is “happy” with what he sees, get the form signed, take it back to the official, only to find out he is out at lunch, wait for an hour for him to return, whereupon he will ask you to fill in the next form……..).