EDITOR'S CHOICE

you've heard people talk about the grass being greener on the other side? In my case it's true. The grass in Mumbai is brown and dull and very fly-away. It's not like the grass in Bangalore or Delhi or even further, Singapore. Or if you care to step much further, UK, USA and even Kenya! The grass there is green. Perenially.

If you haven't got the drift about my rant as yet, it's partly metaphoric partly literal. And fully about the weather. The rains are here in Mumbai, as they are in Kerala (give or take a few degrees), and this year everyone in the city has stopped behaving like brats, as we would have years ago, when rain was a-plenty.

We'd look up at the showers pelting down on us and whine about how ?it always rains only when I step out'. We'd look at the torrent and mutter about the new ?Cherapunji' that is now Mumbai (then, Bombay). We'd grumble to strangers about how indiscriminating these torrents were? why couldn't it just rain in the catchments and leave us alone, as if one of the strangers among us had the power to wean the clouds away! In fact, when the deluge of 26th July 2005 happened, it's as if we decided to do something in exasperation and collectively prayed for the rain to stop. And it did.

For the next few years, the first few weeks of June always reminded me of the opening scene of Lagaan where the anxious villagers constantly searched the sky for a stray grey cloud. If we spotted any we'd pop the champagne! The summers preceding the mild monsoons have been prickly enough for us to transfer our weather tantrums to the heat. We look at drooping plants and our even more drooping spirits and yearn for dripping skies. The Hindus began their yagnas for rain, the Catholics brought out St Anthony and took him out on a procession, the Muslims raised unified voices five times to the heavens? and yet, stubbornly the sky insisted on retaining its happy summer gold.

I tend at times like these, to look beyond my backyard. Singapore is always green, because it rains intermittently all through the year as it does in other cities of the sub-continent. People there carry umbrellas like it's a third arm. London is weepy with rain, all year round, but they don't get a 48 hour deluge, unless El Nino has visited. I'm not talking of desert regions but even places like Kenya is gloriously green most times of the year! And it all has to do with an even distribution of rain. The kind of bounty that is given in small doses as and when needed. Like ordering in your supplies from your vendor on a regular basis. Stuff like that. But these tart thoughts were before our vendor in the sky shut shop and moved his clouds elsewhere.

Luckily though, in the last week the city watched as the sky turned from a fierce gold to a soft ochre, then to a mellow yellow tinged with shades of brown and grey. And then amidst a confusion of colours, there emerged a magnificent rainbow -- a promise of delicious whiff of wet earth, a green canopy, the sound of water filling up a parched city. I couldn't ask for more. The grass is green right here, right now. I am not about to break into a rain dance, but I'm not going to grumble anymore either. Rain on.