A hard rain must fall

It is a well-known fact that a writer’s creative hormones are at their highest during the rains — and the Mumbai monsoons are, perhaps, an unfailing catalyst. If I had to choose one rain-swept sight that gets me started, it would have to be that descent from Walkeshwar to Chowpatty and onto Marine Drive; to witness, with no small satisfaction, the grand sweep of the city and the South West Monsoon flapping and rushing in like a diaphanous curtain left to fend for itself in a storm. Similarly, the promenades of Carter Road and Bandstand, to remind us of the wider forces of nature, of what this city has been lavishly blessed with. And truly, I would think, here’s a city favoured by the Gods but abandoned by its caretakers.