ON A RAINY MUMBAI MORNING

Some Old posts...Never found its way on to the blog....Reposting them...

On a lazy Sunday cloudy morning, dragging my lethargy to work is done with the same sense of self sacrifice as service rendered to the nation..So ditch the daily routine of boarding a local train...(though on a Sunday, there's nothing as blissful as travelling in a train where you usually have the whole first class compartment to yourself ) And there I am, in a taxi gliding along Mumbai roads, still in Sunday slumber.... In no time, came the rains...perhaps to make me happy about my 'wise decision' to cab it... Rain it did and how...Pouring down in sheets so fine that in no time the windows misted....

Ramavataar Dubeyji, my driver for the day explained in exhaustive detail in that lilting Avadhi accent, why he was so careful on the road...the oil on the road made it tricky business in the first rains, cars could skid, but apparently it never happened to him, not when he was driving his black and yellow Fiat...nor now when he has bought his white and blue A/C Indica...He has been ferrying disinterested, impatient passengers like me for over twenty five years now..My occasional 'hmmms' were the only encouragement he needed...The rains created enough din to drown out most of his monologue....and then there was my book..

But no amount of thinking back, can help me figure out what made me ignore Dubeyji and my book, as we pulled up at the Linking road traffic signal...I made a neat little circle on my misted window and peeked outside...And I saw 'bliss' ....There she stood....a raggedy shaggy mass of arms and legs...hair plastered to her face..eyes hidden under the mess... I wouldn't have been able to smile with that glee at my most unguarded moment...

An Ode to the Rains was in progress....her own choreography, set to her own beats...but the rhythm so flawless...The windows misted again, to my irritation...and instinctively, I rolled down the window....The rain happily poured in...but my attention was fixed...Thats when she saw me...Her little eyebrows wiggled in tune with her beat....She knew she had me hooked..The flailings now even more exaggerated....

In no time, two impossibly little bodies joined my rag doll...the tiniest one had no clothes on at all..Just a huge pendant around her neck that settled well above a cutely rounded belly...all that she knew was to jump from left to right to left...with the little belly doing its own little jig...

Out of nowhere, came a little brown hand dripping water.... My little wonder bubble burst...

They were demanding their fee....I was fishing in my pockets for the baksheesh when my rag doll came running forward...and slapped the hand away from my vision...A

nother jiggle with a smile for me, hands going round and round asking me to roll up my window again....and waving my car on like she was the traffic policeman at that junction...Her dance was not on sale...and she wasn't going to let anyone make a quick baksheesh...

Three minutes...thats how long the signal took to turn green....Dubeyji's monologue was on, he didn't notice my distraction at all...I couldn't see my rag doll at all, the rear windows had misted up completely....

All that remained to remind me of that meeting was the water stain rapidly spreading across my kameez where the rain drops had settled to watch my rag doll's performance with me...