Dirtscapes: June 2006

And The Rain Gods Laugheth. All Over Again.

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Ah, ‘tis time to girdle your loins, lads and ladettes, cos the rain gods, they toyeth with us all over again, spreading immeasurable joy, lack of sunshine and other assorted, unmentionable feelings amongst the general wretched populace which has to travel any distance, however small, to get to the place which gives you your daily bread, wherever it may be.

Why do I LOVE the monsoons so? A small compendium right here…

When else would you get to marvel at the sheer dare-devilry of our ‘agencies’ who go about working on the city’s infrastructure, to actually make a difference to your quality of life?
“Dare-devilry?! Pah!!!!”
Yeah… go on and scoff all you want…but let me tell you this…it takes real guts to go about digging fresh sections of reasonably sane roads just a week before the rains are expected (not on the basis of any fancy stochastic weather model, but on the pure common sense one). It is precisely this optimistic, reason-ignoring, fearless attitude that is making the city what it is today. In fact they are laying lives on the line to make it all happen. Just don’t ask whose.

The monsoons invariably teach you how our sewage system works down to the micro-level. There’s no better time to get an actual live, hands-on demo to check out the fate of the swirling, writhing mass comprising of semi-solid human and animal waste, assorted urea based natural excretions, twigs, dead leaves, branches, gutkha packets, biscuit and chocolate wrappers, plastic bags, fruit and vegetable peels, coconut shells, cassette tape, and humongous chunks of thermocol, which besieges your feet as you walk down to your destination because surprise surprise, the roadways are flooded, and vehicles cannot and do not see any point in moving even an inch. Your life would be so much the poorer if you didn’t know where all the above mentioned stuff went. And it does snap you out of your nonchalance about the whole waste disposal deal and ensures that you KNOW what happens to what. The most advantaged are the younger generations, since they learn the basics of drainage and sewage disposal so early on in life. The country need never fear a shortage of Civil Engineers.

When else would you get to read those ‘celebrating the monsoons’ articles in the media which appear with unforgiving, relentless regularity every single year? Every year, there has to be a genius reporter who will suggest that you eat ‘pakodas/bhajjiyas’ with a steaming hot cup of ‘adrak chai’, and feel like you don’t have a care in the world. I mean, this is what we LIVE for right? Cynical fools like me are bound to get that ‘read it a billion times before’ feeling, but I am assuming there is a whole new segment of readers EVERY year, who really don’t know how special this particular food combination is at this time of the year, until they read at least 10 articles devoted to this and other ‘monsoon recipes’. So I’m really happy for them. Really.

When else would you get to read those ‘what do you do in the monsoon months?’ questionnaires hurled at movie and TV ‘celebrities’? This is quality reading at its very best, trust me… Count on the ‘trips to (standard monsoon getaway)’, ‘pakodas and chai at home’,and the extremely enlightening ‘I don’t do anything special’ responses. If not, you get your money back…but hold on…most of this ‘literature’ is free in the first place. Damn.

When else can you read sappy, insulin generation inhibiting articles about the ‘Spirit and Resilience of Mumbai’, after a particularly harsh day’s worth of rain and actually feel try and feel ‘good’ about it? And then it dawns on you that you have been exhibiting this ‘spirit’ for ages now(every ****ing year actually) and are actually used and inured to the whole show. Some spirit that… it should be actually spelt as ‘majboori’.

End of rant.

Note:
This was inspired by just an hour and a half’s worth of steady rain yesterday, thanks to which it took me 4 hours to get home instead of the usual 2. There will be a lot more to jot down, as the season wears on. I can feel it in my bones.

posted by Tapan at 11:50 PM