Hide and Seek

Well, I waited and waited for the monsoons to arrive, and they are here, but somehow not the same as last year. So far, it looks like the Met department’s prediction of a normal rainfall has gone for a toss. Yawn, looks like I’ve heard that before. Now the entire country stands a risk of drought which is a grim scenario indeed.
Anyways coming to the point, as I said the rains have come, but are playing hide and seek. It rains for a full day, and the next day it is bright like mid summer. Guess the weather of Mumbai is also turning into London.
However, the one day match of the rain is enough to knock Mumbai out. As Hindi news channels say “BMC ke saare daawon par paani fir gaya” happens and things come to a standstill. And then we have the “chappe chappe par tainaat reporters”, who give us an update of each area and how much is the water logging, what’s the scene etc. A typical report would go something like this “Ham is waqt Mumbai ke Hindmata/ Milan Subway/ Andheri/ Kurla/Parel (choose whichever you prefer) area mein khade hain aur yahan par (again) Ghutne/Kamar (choice again!!) tak paani bhara hai. Log pareshan hain aur samanye janjeevan astwyast ho gaya hai. Adhikariyon ka koi pata nahi hai aur log behaal hain”.
This is usually followed by an interview with a local, who is enjoying his rainy day. And then comes the biggest, most overused cliché of all times, "In halaat mein bhi Mumbai waasiyon ka haunsla buland hai".
Sometimes I wonder that they archive the tapes and show the same tape each year on a day like that.
Like I mentioned earlier, recession has reached the skies and it’s not raining as it should,so we have some other gems too. “Barso Barkha Rani” was one such gem I heard on a channel which stopped me dead in my channel surfing tracks. I thought it was the latest B Grade hindi movie. Turned out that it was a report of the monsoon situation!! Guess these channels have really good ways of catching eyeballs.
I could continue writing this post forever, or rather till the time these news channels are not banned. Rains or no rains, their gems will keep raining.