Rearview Cityscape - Reminiscing About the Rainy Days of Mumbai
Helps clear a clouded mind on a rainy day
Once the buzzing in your head stops and you gather your thoughts and belongings to make sense of your surroundings and situation, the pieces slowly fall into place, and everything comes rushing back to you. The slow walk outside into reality feels like the start of something new, but also manages to leave a bittersweet taste of leaving something behind. The air was chillier than I am used to, but there ensued a warm feeling inside me as I gazed upon the blue skies and smiled in anticipation of what awaited me out there. The smell of a new city always embraces you warmly, even on a chilly fall afternoon. The long walk from the Terminal to the Baggage claim and eventually to the exits where cabs await eagerly seemed endless.
I did not plan on leaving my beloved city in the way that I did. The city, even though with all its shortcomings, never disappoints you. Great writers and even common everyday folks have romanticized the struggles an individual has to go through in their everyday life to make it in this city. For someone who was born and brought up in the famous undying spirit of the city, Mumbai always has and will have a special place in my heart. When the day came to finally bid adieu to the city I love, to start a new adventure in a new city, I wanted to take my own sweet time. But if anything Mumbai has taught me is that always be prepared for the unplanned, coz life as I have seen it, always intends to surprise. There’s a little secret rule of thumb we all Mumbaikars live by -
“Always keep moving, never stop unless it’s raining.”
Rains in Mumbai are nothing like anywhere else, the experience evokes such a raw emotion in everyone that you can’t help but romanticize even the most tragic and inconvenient circumstances. I was packed and ready to leave just as monsoons were ready to depart Mumbai, I saw it as the most appropriate company with whom I could leave the city. The sudden rush of reality that hits you when it’s time to go through the logistics and the practical aspects of the tasks at hand, there is little room for nostalgia. One thing, though, I have learnt over the years, travelling in Mumbai local trains, the sudden push and jolt of the moving train and crowd always keeps you moving, eventually taking you exactly where you need to be. The fear of the unknown, combined with the excitement of everything that awaits, is exactly the emotion Mumbai rains give you. If you ever find yourself in such a situation in Mumbai, give in to it.
“You can take the boy out of Bombay; you can’t take Bombay out of the boy, you know.” — Salman Rushdie.
The cab started on its course as I handed the driver the address to my hotel. The cab rides are never particularly exciting, no matter which city you go in, but every once in a while, you get that chatty cab driver, who makes sure you remember him as a lingering thought in the days to come. Anthony, a middle-aged, soul food-loving, seemingly happy, smiling local cab driver with a peculiar accent, broke the silence with a familiar question. A typical “what’s your name and where are you from?” is not a fun conversation starter and never gives you a hint whether the other person is genuinely asking or just being polite. The reaction to the answer, though, is something you can grasp on to see if there is a conversation that can be started or the cab ride is going to have more platonic exchanges. The traffic slowed us down, and that gave us a small moment to exchange glances in the rearview mirror. The cab driver turned around and, with a faint smile, looked at me and complimented the city and the people. Something he says he never forgot —
“That city fed a hungry teenage me when I worked and studied there back in the 70s. It’s got a vibe, man!”
“The vibe”, where have I heard that before, while people describe Mumbai? The word typically does a good job of describing any city. It is, albeit a lazy attempt to describe an emotion, and Mumbai certainly is full of that, emotion. To be fair, many have attempted to describe the city and have done a glorious job of it. Gregory David Roberts best described Mumbai in his debut autobiographical novel “Shantaram” —
“Mumbai is the sweet, sweaty smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it’s the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. It’s the smell of Gods, demons, empires, and civilizations in resurrection and decay. It’s the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the island city, and the blood metal smell of machines. It smells of the stir and sleep and the waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. It smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and love that produce courage. It smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and mosques, and a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfume, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. That smell, above all things, is what welcomes me and tells me that I have come home.” — Gregory David Roberts.
I have lived in Mumbai most of my life, and I have been away for a significant time in my short, experienced life, but if there is something that you can be sure is, once you have lived in Mumbai, no other city feels home. The island is filled with more people than its capacity allows it and the humid air always reminds you to take it easy once in a while, as the traffic buzzes around you. Over the years, I have gotten used to the constant buzz of people and vehicles, breathing in the humid air, and the rush to be somewhere else than where I was. I, like many others who have lived in Mumbai, love to have a post midnight drive to have tea and cigarettes by the side of the sea, looking into the abyss, a smoke-filled sky highlighted by the street lights. The indulgence of street food with friends reminiscing of days gone by, never to return. The nights lost in that haze of smog, staring at the seemingly endless sea, are hard to leave behind. The constant rush that the city gives is like a drug that keeps you going through the rough times and some light-hearted ones.
The sudden jolt of the cab stopping and Anthony’s voice dragged me out of the slumber of thoughts suggesting that the destination had arrived. Anthony gave his card and asked to call if I needed anything, which earned him a decent tip. I eagerly settled into my hotel room and decided to venture out for a bite. The receptionists in the hotel lobby were nice enough to warn me about the weather and the windiness. The chilly air greeted me like a stranger’s poke, intending to inquire about me. The wind was quite harsh as I was warned, and I struggled my way into a local bistro and ordered myself a plate of whatever was quickly available on the menu. As I took the first bite of food in my new city, filled with excitement to explore and breathe in the good with the bad, I told myself —
“Let the Detox begin.”