My Mumbai Diary : It rains cats and dogs

You must have heard about the Mumbai rains but it’s nothing until you have experienced it. Entire island city embraces as rain sets in by end of June. Monsoon that last for about four months will turn city into a pleasant cloudy concrete garden. Usually warm and humid gets cooled off with the rains and Mumbaikar relish the joy of rain for many reasons.

Mumbai is beautiful during the monsoon. It is refreshing and a misty, cool gusty wind from Arabian Sea adds a delight to have a nice cosy weekend at home, much away from the muddy rush. With rains there is so much to do, from romantic walk on the sea facing promenades of Nariman Point, Worli and Bandra to hot spicy fried chats near chowpaty's the whole some experience is a delight.

Mumbai doesn't have best of infrastructure compared to national capital which leads into a fury of monsoon saga. Its torturous to travel during monsoon as the torrential downpours gets most of the cities low line areas flooded and waterlogged resulting slow to stand still traffic with thousands of people stranded in the bus stations, highways and railway station. People usually carry spare clothes and are usually seen in Bata floaters.

When you are living in Mumbai you have to be really prepared for monsoon. You need to have good pair of shoes, windcheater, and heavy duty umbrella, plastic pouch for your mobile phone and wallet, water proof bag with some biscuits. Now this may sound massive plan but believe me this is how Mumbaikar face the monsoon. Your tiny-miny umbrella will not last more than 5 minutes in hustling windy rains, most of the time it’s upside down and be nothing more than a scrap.

Towards the mid month of June, when heat has drained the city, people are craving for rains to arrive, from national dailies to facebook and twitter, people will rant about when the god damn rains is going to arrive. Many people do believe that good timely monsoon will predicts the coolness of January which in last few years I have experienced doesn't plunge below 18 degrees. As rains will start with pre monsoon low pressure towards south western peninsula, people demonstrate joy and happiness as if it’s a festival long awaited and with weeklong down pour same people are ranting on facebook asking almighty to stop the tap. All the radio stations play some of the best monsoon love songs which make it more lovingly. With lovely walks in promenade to garma garam chai, spicy bhajiyas and vada pavs, Mumbai rains are the best.

I love Mumbai and monsoon makes me more addictive to this city.