One More Monsoon Blog Post, Three Years Later

Here we are: absolutely ages ago I was blathering about the rivers of water pouring down the streets -- words I hadn't read since shortly after I'd written them. After being out in a downpour today, thought to myself, "I should go back to that blog I used to use to use, to tell all the people exactly how it is to be out in the monsoon, with absolutely rivers of water pouring down the streets!"

Apparently monsoon blogging is not the most original of ideas; even I've had it before. Still, it remains a good idea to stay in touch with the people, mostly my relatives. Today I realized that this year has slipped away from me fast, without all of the documentation I was planning on giving it. The fact that it's actually passing by hit me with renewed vigor when the confirmation came through: we are coming home on November 29th, and we have tickets.

On to the content of today's post, which is indeed set on a steaming Bombay monsoon evening. I don't always love living in Bombay -- it a is huge, congested, inconvenient, impersonal, irritating city which can be quite difficult to navigate. And we don't just live in Bombay: we live in Andheri, a northern suburb of the city that is possibly even more crowded, congested, and difficult than the city proper, what the locals call "town."

But I nearly always love living in my neighborhood, a small enclave within the city that's actually recognized as such by the government, which calls it a "gaothan." The idea, as I understand it, is that certain villages and towns were established settlements long before the Mumbai metropolitan area crept north to meet them. When Mumbai expanded, these enclaves were absorbed into the city. For me, this means that we live almost directly across from the Andheri train station -- one of the busiest, loudest, most crowded places in the city -- and yet we hear almost no station noise. Instead, we hear the neighbor's rooster, two different muezzins at two different mosques, and that pesky autorickshaw that has trouble starting in the morning. Our flat is reached through a series of winding lanes, and we generally have to go out to the road to fetch any visitors. The little old ladies who sit on the wall outside our building gave us directions to that same road for almost a week when we first moved in. They continue to say hello to us
and quiz us about our comings and goings, which I much appreciate.

Tonight I realized that I had neglected to do the one task I had for the day: purchase milk. After squandering a day, I felt that going out in the morning would not be acceptable -- and what if the milk was finished? It was after 10:30, well past dark, and the rain hadn't stopped in hours. In fact, the rain had just gotten a bit stronger and was now thumping down on the tin roof. Still, milk at this hour was a questionable proposition to begin with, and it only became more unlikely with time. I hurriedly draped my dupatta around neck, grabbed my umbrella and squeaked down the stairs, out through the open doorway and into the night.

I saw no one. The rain was worse than I thought, then picked up strength. I crossed over the square where some of my neighbors park their autorickshaws. A few men and young boys were folded up in one of them, escaping the downpour. I turned left at the crucifix, passed the mosque where people were still busy at prayer, and passed down a small alley, empty by day but transformed into a bustling restaurant at night. To reach the street one must wind under the tarps and through the plastic tables and chairs that have been erected for the restaurant's patrons. The busy restaurant and mosque gave me hope for my milk errand.

When I emerged out into the street, I saw the combined sweet store and milk shop's lights gleaming on an otherwise dark street. Although it was nearly eleven, people thronged the front counter of the shop, which was doing a brisk business in special Ramadan milk sweets. In addition to extra time in prayer, in many neighborhoods Ramadan is a time to eat special, delicious foods after the daily fast is broken at sundown. The milk store was not only open, it was buzzing with people, so busy that I waited for ten minutes to be served. I couldn't go home with just my liter of milk, so I also picked up a "sweet dish." Tonight it was firni -- a sweet milk dish not unlike think homemade pudding -- with big tapioca orbs and shards of young coconut. The little clay dish was quickly wrapped up with string, my milk was ladled from the giant metal can into a small plastic bag, and I was back into the wet night, my salwaar sodden but my spirits high.