What Ho! Ah! To live with a What Ho on my lips and a Gentleman's Gentleman… {sigh}… Such is life…

The Monsoon Breeze of Mumbai

I came to Mumbai in March 2010 - as spring was dying and summer merriy laying it's sticky grip on the city. As the weeks rolled by I realised that I missed the evening breeze I had grown accustomed to in Hyderabad. A breeze that blows away the heat & dust of the Hyderabadi day and ushers in the cool of the night.

I dearly missed that brezee as I tried to get an autowalla to go the way I wanted to go. I forgot all about it as soon as I entered my air conditioned service apartment - till the next evening found me lugging a laptop in business formals trying to find an auto to take me "home".

It was one such evening that I noticed the smell. Of fish. I had somehow never noticed it before but after that first surprised meeting we kept bumping into each other on what seemed to be a daily basis.

It was then that I realised that it was the Mumbai breeze that was brining my new friend the smell of fish to me everyday. The breeze was a slip of a thing. I barely noticed her. But she was strong enough to carry my new friend all the way from the Arabian Sea to Andheri East.

I soon took both my new friends for granted, barely noticing them till I needed them.

Then with almost startling suddeness it started raining. Nothing coy about the mighty mistress of the monsoon. She just arrived one day and laid siege to our lives. She rules all. She cannot be denied or ignored. She is everywhere. All dominating, willful, strong and passionate.

With the arrival of the monsoon I rediscovered my friend, the shy breeze of Mumbai. I am sure it is her but she has changed! She is no longer a shy little girl but a woman in full control of her life. She no longer whispers around the rooms but blows through them. And she no longer bears on her shoulders my other friend - the smell of fish from the sea.

My friend is a little frightening in her current form but she is also very loving. She brings with her a cooling freshness that has finally blown away the accumulated misery of summer. A true Shakti!

I wait to see how she will change in the coming months - the first I will see as a new citizen of Mumbai.

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