Chapter 40: The Second Monsoon

The monsoon returns in June — the second monsoon, my second monsoon, the monsoon that I no longer fear because the first monsoon taught me that rain in Mumbai is: not weather but identity. Mumbai without monsoon is: a city. Mumbai with monsoon is: Mumbai.

The rain arrives on a Tuesday at 3:47 PM. I know the time because I'm at my desk at Spark & Co and the first crack of thunder makes Zoya drop her phone (not from shock — from the specific excitement that Mumbaikars feel when the monsoon breaks, the excitement that is: relief, because the weeks before the monsoon are: the worst weeks, the weeks where the humidity reaches ninety-three percent and the air becomes: soup and every person in the city walks around with the expression of: someone being slowly cooked).

"IT'S HERE!" Zoya announces. As if: the entire office couldn't hear the thunder. As if: the rain pounding the windows isn't audible to every person on the floor. Zoya's announcement is: not information but celebration. The celebration that Mumbai performs every year when the monsoon arrives — the celebration that says: we survived the heat, and the reward is: water.

I stand at the window. The Lower Parel view — the office buildings, the construction cranes, the roads that are already: flooding, because Mumbai floods the way other cities get: damp. Not gradually but immediately. One hour of monsoon rain and the streets are: rivers. The rivers that flow through the city carrying: everything, the everything being: plastic bags and auto-rickshaw passengers and the specific despair of people who chose to wear: white.

"The second monsoon is: different," Prerna says, standing beside me. "The first monsoon you experience in Mumbai, you think: disaster. The second monsoon, you think: home."

"Home."

"Home. Because the monsoon is: the thing that separates tourists from residents. Tourists run from the rain. Residents: walk in it. Residents know that getting wet is: inevitable, and inevitable things should be: embraced."

At Seaside Fitness, the monsoon transforms the gym. Not structurally — the treadmills still work (mostly; Treadmill 7 has been "temporarily out of service" since: I arrived, and the "temporarily" has become: philosophical, a question about the nature of: time). But the energy shifts. The monsoon energy is: different from the summer energy. Summer energy is: escape. People come to the gym to escape the heat. Monsoon energy is: communion. People come to the gym because the gym is: the only dry place that isn't their apartment, and apartments in the monsoon are: claustrophobic, the walls closing in with the humidity and the sound of rain and the particular loneliness that monsoon afternoons produce.

The gym becomes: a living room. A communal living room where forty people sit and talk and drink Rohit's chai (Rohit has added chai to the juice bar menu — not because the business model supports it but because "nobody wants a smoothie when it's raining, and refusing to serve chai during monsoon is: criminal").

I sit at the juice bar. Vandana sits beside me. Jaya sits beside Vandana. Aditi sits beside Jaya. The formation that has become: ours. The formation of women who have spent eighteen months sitting in approximately this formation and who have shaped the juice bar stools to: their bodies, the bodies having made the stools: theirs.

"Sanjay wants a baby," Vandana says.

The sentence arrives the way Vandana's sentences always arrive — without preamble, without warning, with the specific bluntness of a woman who treats conversation as: surgery. Cut. State. Move on.

"A baby," Jaya repeats.

"A baby. He says — he says the Dubai years were: wasted years. And he wants to: make up for them. He wants to start the family we postponed. He wants to: begin."

"Vandana. You're forty-three."

"I'm aware of my age, Jaya. My eggs are also: aware."

"Do you want a baby?"

The question. The question that Vandana processes the way Vandana processes all questions — quickly, with the full force of her intelligence, which is: considerable, and her honesty, which is: formidable.

"I want: Sanjay to stay. And Sanjay staying might require: giving him something to stay for. And a baby is: the thing that makes men stay. Not always. Not reliably. But: often."

"That's not a reason to have a baby," I say. "That's a reason to have a: conversation."

"I've had conversations. I've had sixteen months of conversations — with myself, with you, with Sanjay, with my mother who calls every Sunday and asks 'koi khushi khabar?' as if the only good news a woman can produce is: a pregnancy. I've had: conversations. What I need is: clarity."

"Then be clear. Not with us — with Sanjay. Tell him what you just said. The 'Sanjay staying might require giving him something to stay for.' Tell him: that. Because if he's staying for a baby, he's not staying for: you. And staying for you is: the only staying that survives."

Vandana drinks her chai. The chai-drinking that Vandana performs when Vandana is: thinking. The thinking that produces: decisions. Vandana doesn't think for: pleasure. Vandana thinks for: action.

"You're right," she says.

"I know."

"You're annoyingly right. You've been annoyingly right since: January. Since the salwar kameez. Since you walked in here not knowing anyone and somehow knowing: everything about what women need from each other. How do you do that?"

"I spent twenty-seven years being: wrong. Twenty-seven years teaches you: everything about right."

The monsoon continues. The monsoon that lasts four months — the four months where Mumbai is: underwater and overloaded and absolutely alive, the aliveness that rain produces when rain is: expected and embraced and: celebrated.

I walk in the rain. Not to somewhere — just: in the rain. Carter Road. Evening. The promenade that is: soaked, the benches wet, the couples who usually sit on the benches standing under the trees that don't actually provide: shelter but that provide: the illusion of shelter, which is: sufficient because in monsoon Mumbai, the illusion of dryness is: all you have.

I walk and I get wet and the getting-wet is: not discomfort but baptism. The baptism of the second monsoon — the monsoon that says: you survived the first year. You're: here. You're not visiting. You're not escaping. You're: living. In this city. In this rain. In this life that you built from: nothing, from wreckage, from the raw material of a divorce and a flat and a gym membership and the specific courage that women produce when women decide to: begin again.

The rain on my face. The rain on my short hair (Faizan's cut, maintained every six weeks, the cut that is: mine now, the cut that says I am not the long-haired wife of a Lucknow man but the short-haired woman of a Mumbai life). The rain on my arms, my kurta (wet, sticking, the fabric becoming: a second skin, the skin of: Mumbai). The rain on my kolhapuris (ruined, again, because kolhapuris in monsoon are: sacrificial, offered to the rain gods in exchange for: the right to walk).

I stand at the Carter Road railing. The sea is: invisible. The rain is so heavy that the sea and the sky and the rain have become: one thing. One grey, moving, enormous thing that contains: everything. The sea and the sky and the rain saying: we are: the same. We are: water. And you are standing in us and you are: part of us.

My phone rings. Chetan.

"Where are you?"

"Carter Road. In the rain."

"You're insane."

"I'm alive."

"Those might be: the same thing in Mumbai."

"Come walk with me."

"In the monsoon?"

"In the monsoon. In the rain. Come walk with me and get wet and ruin your kurta and lose your chappals and be: alive with me."

He comes. Of course he comes. Chetan comes when I ask because love is: showing up, and showing up in the monsoon is: the Mumbai version of love, the version that says: I will be wet and uncomfortable and alive with you because being wet and uncomfortable and alive with you is: better than being dry and comfortable and alone.

We walk. Carter Road. In the rain. Holding hands. The hands that are wet and the grips that are: slippery and the walking that is: ridiculous and beautiful and the most romantic thing that two fifty-somethings can do in Mumbai in June, which is: walk in the rain and laugh at the rain and be: the rain.

"I love you," I say. First time. In the rain. On Carter Road. The words that I haven't said to anyone new in twenty-seven years and that I'm saying now because the rain gives: permission. The rain that washes everything — dirt, pretence, the hesitation that prevents people from saying: the thing.

"I love you," he says. "Since Marine Drive. Since the first walk. Since you said: 'tell me about Meera.' Since then."

"That long?"

"That long. Writers are: slow to speak. But we: notice everything."

We stand in the rain. Two people who found each other at fifty. Two people who had: first lives that ended (one by divorce, one by death) and who are now living: second lives. Doosri innings. The second innings where the real game: happens.

The rain pours. The sea roars. The city of Mumbai drowns and lives and drowns and lives and the drowning and the living are: the same thing, the same city, the same monsoon, the same: us.