I have to post this, because Baaba Maal is always eloquent and I must admit I was carried away to Carter Road, for a moment, in his description of his youth in India.
Baaba Maal said...
Ask anyone from India, specifically from the western metropolis of Bombay (unfortunately referred to now as Mumbai) what rain means to them, and they will inevitably mention the months of June through mid- September which is the Monsoon season in southeast asia, and where the tropical rain is quite unlike its "drizzly and misty" meek London cousin. These are full on buckets of water as the heavens open, and even a two minute run to your car to get the dang door open can drench you and make you feel you just had a shower with your clothes on.
Nostalgia is what comes to my mind, as I am reminded of my early youth as I watched outside my bedroom window as the rains fell and tricked through the large mango tree outside the window and in the horizon over the tree tops in the adjoining park. A football game, the rough and thirsty seas on Juhu beach which almost always got a few foolish victims, a jog on Carter Road along the sea wall, and then when the rains stopped, the roadside vendor firing up the corn on the cob over a charcoal stove, the spicy ginger hot tea and vegetable pakoras with hot chutney, and walking outside in rubber flipflops. The moist and fresh air and the city looked refreshed after its first shower in nearly 9 months. The house is gone (a mall sprang up), the mango tree made way for the parking lot. The park remains, though very tamed and under private management, it has lost its wild forest like attraction. Juhu beach still atracts its hordes of beachgoers and perhaps a few foolish victims. And carter road and its vendors - they thrive and host a younger generation, even as my generation has moved on and scattered to all corners of this earth. Somehow, those magical moments will never ever be recreated for me.......
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