Law, Partially

I had to run an errand after work today in South Mumbai. Not all the way South, just four stations down the suburban railway. The monsoon may have come on slow, but it is definitely upon us now. Two or three storms roll through every night, and usually some in the day too. I’ve always been able to time the walk from my apartment to my office and back during periods where it’s not raining. It rained all day today. The day I had to run my errand. Cars driving through puddles only once splashed me today, and I’m thinking that the brown stains won’t show up on the grey pants. Keeping my work clothes clean is a major goal of mine. I gave my umbrella last weekend to Jingyi and Christine, I think, and I didn’t have an umbrella today. I borrowed one from Mritunjay. His umbrella would not survive the trip. I didn’t need the umbrella anyway. Even though it poured rain for a large part of the day, by 6pm, when I set off on my journey, it was just drizzling. Trying to walk with all the people in t...

People talked so much hype on this monsoon. People made it sound like life was basically over once the monsoon started. Boats would have to be taken to work. Nights would have to be spent in the office. Travel would be out of the question. All there is to do on a monsoon weekend is stay in with a book – this is, if you’ve even made it home from the office. I know there was catastrophic flooding in 2005. I know that floods happen are not uncommon during the monsoon. But so far, it hasn’t rained very much. Maybe this is because the hurricane that hit Oman has just disrupted the weather that much. Maybe this is because it never rains any other time of the year, so when it starts raining daily, this is a shock. It didn’t rain today, but it did rain last night. I can hear thunder in the South, which is from where the monsoon comes. There was a short shower yesterday, but so far the only time it rained all day was on Sunday. Even Sunday had hours of dryness. Maybe things just take a while to...

I was again mistaken. The monsoon still has not begun. Yesterday was just a series of pre-monsoon showers. But today at work I was promised, just as I have been promised for weeks now, the monsoon will probably come tomorrow. On Friday, the news lady said the monsoon would come within 24 hours. I guess you can't trust Indian meteorologists either.

There have been short rain showers nearly every day for the past week, and I ask Indians at work, is this the monsoon? First off, no one calls it “the monsoon.” It is “the rains.” Only I call it the monsoon. Second, no, it’s not the monsoon yet. These are just pre-monsoon rain showers. A few weeks ago there was a hurricane that hit Oman. Oman is a country on the extreme east of the Arabian Peninsula. North of it is the Persian Gulf and north of that, Iran. There are a lot of Indian immigrants there. Maybe you’ve heard that the Arabs won’t work, so they ship in huge populations of foreigners – Indians being one of the most represented nationalities in this shipping. Some Indians died in this hurricane, and it was slight news here. It was more newsworthy because this storm has delayed the official start of the monsoon. But today it has rained almost all day off and on. It pours for 10 minutes or so, then it drizzles, then it clears up. It stopped raining for about 3 hours this afternoon,...