Dekho baarish ho rahi hai.. Its raining, its raining, its raaaaaaaiiiiiiininnnnnnng!!!

Bombay rains are so famous. If I write anything about the rains it'll be a 'seen it-heard about it' kind of thing. It's started raining in Pune and I miss the Bombay rains.. so I'm going to write about them anyway!

When we were staying at the hotel (that was sometime in June last year), I enjoyed the rains. You see, the window of the hotel room had a ledge outside it, that, was wide enough for a person to sit on (provided your legs were dangling off it).
So every evening, when it would start to rain, my hotel mates and I would dangle our legs off the ledge and look at cars passing by on the flyover yonder. He he... yonder matlab... must have been some 600-700 metres away.
The rain would wet our feet and the breeze on the 3rd floor was just mind blowing (not literally).

By the time we had shifted out of the hotel into our tiny flat, the rains had gotten worse.

It's just like in the movies. One minute you're walking dry, the next minute you're soaking wet! I remember, one Friday, a friend of mine and I were walking to a bus stop on the highway nearby. We had to go to Borivali. And while walking, I felt a drop on my face. My friend felt a drop or two as well. Then we were wet.
There's no point in carrying an umbrella. By the time you've opened it the rain's done its job!

At office, everybody used to talk about 26th July. The day when Bombay got flooded with rain water so bad, thousands of people died. Everyone talked about it like it was the Holocaust or something. I guess they're justified. The stories about people flowing away, children drowning before their parents, electrocutions...
And people at office talked about how, inspite of the adversity, everyone managed to complete deadlines and deliveries as scheduled.

This July, it started flooding again.
Everyday News channels used to telecast gory stories about water levels rising and roads being closed down. And News channels like to put an ounce of mirch-masala to the story na, so my parents went crazy.
"You come back home! Why you have to go to office?" Mumma used to keep yelling over the phone. I never listened anyway.
"Ata meech tithe yete!! (Now I'll only come there!!)"
Arre baap-re!!!
"Nako!!!! Please ithe yeu nako! (DONT come here!)"
"Ka?? Ka nahi yeycha? (Why cant I come?)"
"Are you can't swim nah! How will you reach my place?"
That would quieten her down a bit. But only a bit. Next day she'd call again.

My dad was a little calmer. He told me to buy a bottle of Dettol and some Crocin. You see the rains are likely to carry water-borne diseases with it. And these can affect your feet if you're lucky! So it's always better to keep disinfectants.
He he, the most innovative thing he told me was, "Buy a bottle of aftershave."
"Haan???"
"Aftershave is a good disinfectant. Everytime you get your feet wet, come home and put aftershave on your feet. It'll keep them from getting sore."
To tell you it actually worked! Where people were complaining about smelly feet and cracks, my feet smelled amazing! And they stayed soft throughout the monsoon! Awesome!

Once, the water levels rose waist-high on the highway near Marol. A friend of mine had to walk in waist-high water to get to office.
And the guy strolled in happily onto the carpetted floor of the office, wet shoes, drenched shirt and all!
That evening, another friend of mine couldn't go back home to Borivali. So she came to stay with us for a night. There were 5 of us in the flat now and having a blast!
Next day, it was still raining. So she couldn't go home.

The 5 of us had lunch at a restaurant nearby. Water here was only ankle deep, so we could walk.
After lunch, when we stepped out in the rain, I felt so good I wanted to go for a walk in the rain. Everyone shot the idea down with a rifle ofcourse... But my Borivali friend thought I was a genius!!!

Luck is wonderful, because I found a small park opposite the restaurant that made my eyes sparkle! So my friend and I went to the park for a walk in the rain and the others went home thinking we had lost it.

I'll tell you something honestly... there's nothing like losing it once in a while.

It was a walk to remember...