His eyes suddenly open...He is surprised by his own loneliness. It’s the same room that he has woken up in for the past four years, the dampness and the bubbles on the corner of wall and ceiling as familiar to him as his daily dabba meals. His eyes flutter to his left foot, looking for his old hawaai chappal. Then to the right, at the cosy bed.
He gives up and gets up, ignoring the protesting knots in his back.
And at once he realizes. He hasn’t been woken by the sunlight, most unwelcome to owners of east-facing bedroom windows. It’s the sound that has woken him up. Clattering on the tin parapet that the people below insisted on putting up last December. It’s raining.
He steps up to the window and waits for his eyes to adjust to the waking world. A few seconds pass before he realizes that it’s coming down so fast and heavy that the gray around is not his sleepiness but water, sheer water.
For the briefest second, he begins a smile, thinking the earliest conscious thought that occurs to a Mumbaiker during heavy rain. NO OFFICE ... NO SCHOOL! But the smile stops before it reaches his cheek corners and he realizes there’s an important meeting later in the day and an early morning chat with the boss to prepare. How’s he going to get to work in this downpour? He’d better carry an extra set of formal clothes, one part of his brain is already whizzing. And his hands reach for the side-drawer, groping in the musty darkness for the plastic shield for his mobile phone, lest he forget to carry it later. Survival first is the metropolitan mantra.
He should probably leave early to provide for any delays. There’ll be plenty – traffic jams, pedestrian shouting, late trains, buses negotiating puddles. As he leaves the room, his fingers brush the switch panel, turning on the light, turning off the fan and the mosquito repellent plug-in. Mid-automation, he swirls around. Even through the downpour, he can tell, the window opposite is shut. Funny. He could have sworn, it was open last night. Maybe she got up when it started raining and shut it. Maybe it was always shut. Maybe…
The doorbell rings and he rushes out of the room, all thoughts fleeing instantly.
The monsoon is here and so is Monday.
