Raincoat.

"Mumbai mein rehena hai madam, toh barish se dosti karni hi paregi" ,a rickshaw puller told me, during one of my first monsoons in the New York of India. When the first few drops fell on the feeble roof of the rickshaw and eventually trickled down to my white kurta fixing me in a tight spot, the poor guy laughed and went on ahead to talk about how Bombay and Monsoons were old lovers who meet every year with their passion only increasing, and that I mustn't have paani puri from Juhu beach no matter how much everyone sings to its fables, because his 11 year old son,Rochu suffered from diarrhea after that. And I went on listening to all of his stories cursing every drop of  water that fell one me, and abusing every walking talking man on road who ogled at my white kurta as if he found heaven in between the water clogged roads and mind-numbing traffic of Bombay. I never liked rain.

My initial reasons of befriending the city were completely different. I came here for matrimony. I was 28, lived in Pune, with paranoid parents who saw their Microsoft-daughter working and earning just well, but had the most probable chances of just doing well at that. And so, a meeting with a boy was fixed and a mid point from both our home towns was selected- Bombay. What happened to that meet, god only knows. He did show up.. to tell me he already had a girlfriend who he planned on running away with. I gave him a thumbs up and we both pooled in for our coffee bill (yes, he was the miser types) and left. He, to elope from Bombay, and I to elope to bombay.. to weave a life in a city that let me smell sweet independence for perhaps the first time in my life and hence, I fell in love. With this very city, and decided to move in here. I was called the kalank of the family, and my parents had to hear a lot from the Gujju community... which was perhaps more important than what their daughter really wanted, and so, my parents only considered their son ; my brother; Adhiraj, as their only off spring, leaving me alone to find my own name,community, and in short- a world of my own.

I was a bright girl. I had done my bit of higher studies, so getting a job wasn't all that difficult, but getting an apartment was.
"Yaha toh ghar mein aane ke liye lakshmi taras jaati hai, lekin sala ghar ka koi theekana hi nahi" ; is a common Bombay joke. And it's true. You might have a fantastic job which pays you quite generously, but  finding an apartment in Bombay is like finding a needle in a hay stack. And believe you me, it's not an exaggeration. So when I found myself a flat tiny enough to squeeze in a bed, a closet, a book-shelf, T.V, and a rug, I treated myself to shots of Vodka down at the local pub, for I had a roof above my head, unlike too many out there in the ironic city of dreams.
So, from there, started a very normal way of getting to know the city, making acquaintances at work, flirting some with interesting men, walking into a friend circle, working hard all week and partying in the weekends. I never got calls from home. I tried calling once or twice, but the response shook me up and made me swear to never call those people family again.

But this story isn't about any of that. This story is about a simple afternoon on a simple day. It was the time for Bombay rains. I was getting back to office from my lunch break when the rain gods decided to reign like angry ghosts. Perfect timing, folks.
 My face screwed up and I struggled to stay not an inch in, not an inch out of a bus stop's roof when a commuter looks at me, and giggled.

" Yes?" I said, annoyance punching every alphabet.
" Not much of a rain person, eh didi?"
"I'm sorry do I know you?"
"Not much of a Bombay person either." he made a statement that fused my bulb.
"Very much a Bombay person. And who are you again?"
"I am pretty much like all these guys running behind buses, drenched in their office attires. Some one who knows how to befriend things I don't like. That's what Bombay teaches you right. Like maybe rain."
"How?"
"Raincoats." ; he said, making my eyes follow his, to a scenery my eyes somehow managed to miss for three long years.

The busiest streets with the most colorful colors, of raincoats, that danced along with the beats of a city that provided them with almost everything, in some tiny way. It provided me with a dream. A dream to realize the pleasure of being on my own.
And that day, it taught me to fight and work out ways to move with things in life parallely that seemed to cross paths no matter what.

All I had to do, was use a raincoat.

-Awaiting feed backs,

Nil.