Of Resignations and Dancing in the Rain

Today has been quite a day. Well, for starters it was my last day at work. You know how it is. Everyone is saying they will miss you and will stay in touch with you. Random people who you have met just twice in the cafeteria, women whose names you don’t remember, men who have given you the polite nod and let you take your cappuccino before them, the receptionist who is probably a bit sick of receiving your lunch sandwiches and the boss you may not love so much. It could be an excruciatingly fake exercise except today, it was not.

So what has changed? Surely not the people who promise to call but don’t have my number, or colleagues who immediately add you on facebook but may never drop a note. I think it was me. I think some of my cynicism about people in general seems to have reduced. My smile has become more genuine, my laugh less sarcastic and my one liners less personal. I find it easier to have a chat with a new acquaintance and I actually notice a subtle haircut and remind myself to drop a compliment. I don’t shut myself out anymore and it is so refreshing. My last day wasn’t spent running around with the clearance form, frantic to get out of the office. It wasn’t spent counting hours and minutes. It was a peaceful routine and in the pool of multiple goodbyes, the genuine ones that I could spot made me happy.

With that done with and the relieving letter tucked under my arms, I gallivanted around the city in an auto rickshaw and remembered my initial days in Mumbai. The weather right now is hot and sultry, but there is that weight in the air and that smell in the evening breeze that whispers in your ears about the impending rains. The promise of thick droplets of water crashing at my balcony doesn’t scare me. I know the roads will flood, the autos will refuse to budge, the pot holes will disappear into menacing little marshes waiting to swallow you in. But the rain will also do what it does each year – wash away all the sadness, the resentment and grudges of the year gone by and give me a fresh start, a happy beginning to another phase.

I will only witness the first few weeks or maybe even days of monsoon in Mumbai. A series of snapshots in my head show me the slushy train ride to andheri, the gorgeous evening walk at carter road, the folded jeans, the squeaky flip flops, the broken umbrella at worli, the drenched me witnessing my first violent downpour and the room I once lived in at my aunt’s house. There is something about the water, the puddles, the frogs in the pool, the lush green weeds, the noise of the splashes, the fear of the flooding, that completely fascinates me.

If there is something about Mumbai that I have loved more than the city itself, it’s the monsoon. The most inconvenient season of the city has been my favourite and will continue to be. Till I return again, I will always remember Mumbai for the joy the monsoon has given me. Like someone once said, “Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness, has never danced in the rain”.