Monsoons and not a moment too soon!

The monsoons are here. It’s that most wonderful time of the year again, when you are filled with unbridled love because your girlfriend’s clothes have turned translucent in the pouring rain. It’s the season that invokes the most nostalgia as you think back to the those enchanting times when you’ve had to swim back home because of all the water-logging. It’s that time of the year again when TV news channels go on extended holidays leaving last year’s footage of a gigantic puddle of water on loop with the headline, “IS KURLA THE NEXT ATLANTIS?”

This year the rains arrived pretty early which the MET department predicted correctly with the use of their new, sophisticated, weather forecasting system called, “Guesswork.” As the first lilting showers fell ever so gently on the thirsty earth below, kissing it with its wet raindrop lips, people were inspired to write lines such as this one. After the oppressive summer heat, the cool showers of monsoon felt exactly like switching over to the BBC after hours of watching AAJ TAK.

But all this rain-loving is but a matter of a week when the novelty of seeing water falling from the sky wears off. After that the rains become more of an inconvenience than a wonderful and romantic season, especially so if you have to step out of the house a lot.

The monsoons replace that uncomfortable sweating in the scorching heat with the uncomfortable sweating in the stuffy humidity. The air gets damp and sticky and your clothes take more time to dry than it takes an Ashutosh Gowariker film to reach its climax (7 years and 3 days).

The umbrellas and windcheaters start coming out after months of hibernating in the section of the cupboard which also contains your dirty magazines and it becomes terribly inconvenient for two people to walk with umbrellas on a footpath which is designed keeping in mind that no one is supposed to walk on it. Always make sure that you choose an umbrella befitting your gender. If you are a man then it is absolutely necessary that you carry the ‘gent’s’ umbrella, which is basically a simple black umbrella the size of a military helicopter. If you are a woman, your umbrella by default has to be of the foldable, compact type with colourful floral patterns on it. This distinction has been made because woman can get away with having a cute little pink umbrella without the risk of being called gay.

No piece on the rains would be complete without mentioning the brilliant flood control measures that our country has. Let me attempt to explain this complex system to you. Every time it rains, we open a drain, which causes water to start flooding the streets and that’s when our state-of-the-art-system of “evaporation” kicks in to get rid of the water in a record time of 4 days. This system works well as long as you don’t fall into any of the open drains.

Shoes are to be avoided in the monsoon. If you’re a woman that basically means putting aside 90% of your belongings for the next 3 months. And if you’re shoes are made of leather, then you better be more careful about their safety than a girl going home at 7 o clock in the evening in Delhi is about hers. Rains are to leather shoes, what the Taliban is to a woman who wants to play to football, that too in shorts.

Talking of which, the one defining cliché that everyone must do, is play football in the rains. People seem to think that a wet day somehow adds to the enjoyment of playing the sport. It’s not hard to see why they think like this, after all football is most fun when passing becomes impossible because the ground has been turned into a mud swamp, where you spend most of your time slipping and rolling around in the slush like a pig. The only person who doesn’t share your joy of playing football in the rains is your maid who has to wash what is basically a lot of mud in the shape of your T-Shirt.

All in all the monsoons are a wonderful season, not just because of the joy you get when your car splashes water on a person wearing a white shirt, not just because of the cold breeze that precedes a downpour and makes you want to rub Vicks Vaporub all over yourself and surely not just because of the sadistic joy you get out of seeing little children cry every time there’s a loud clap of thunder. No, the monsoon draws its beauty from the refreshment and the metaphorical cleansing that it offers to all those who’ve somehow managed to avoid falling into an open drain.

Rain Rain Come Again...

French Open 2011: Well Clayed, Rafael Nadal.

The French Open was played between two of the greatest rivals in recent times: L.K. Advani and Sonia Gandhi. No, that’s not it. The second slam of the year was actually played between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal on a brilliant Sunday afternoon in France and whose live telecast was watched in India on a soggy Sunday evening.

The match started with Fedrerer quickly asserting himself and showing everyone why he was once upon a time, the number one player in the world by taking a 3-0 lead in the first set. Federer had a lot to prove coming into this final having won his last grand slam in the Australian Open in 2010, or in tennis years, 65 million years ago.

Nadal on the other hand was looking to equal Bjorn Borg’s record of most French Open titles won by long haired men (6). On the day, Federer was wearing a red t-shirt in his classic one-size too small look. Nadal too wore his trademark really-tight-and-always-has-to-be-pulled-out-before-service underwear.

Coming back to the point (pun intended), the first set looked to be going Federer’s way, until Rafa Nadal who’s name is Spanish for, “One who never gives up.”, began doing what he does best, grunting really loudly. Am kidding of course, Nadal actually began playing some of the tennis that earned him the nickname, “King Of Clay.”, which by the way is English for, “Rafa Nadal.”

Suddenly, he began winning all the long rallies and amassed a lot of points by using his powerful forehand. Showing the determination of an Indian Government in making sure that there’s a scam every 15 days, Nadal scraped his way up and ended up winning the first set. In doing so, he broke Federer’s serve more times, than India TV could break headlines in the same amount of time. A minor record in its own right.

Nadal started the second set brightly. Federer’s body language looked deflated. Hope was ebbing out of him. His backhands that had once been firm strokes of assuredness, like the kind made by a master painter suddenly looked like the hasty, brutal hacks made by a deranged serial killer. Just when it looked like Federer’s serve was going to broken again with him 4-5 behind, the most unexpected thing happened: Nadal was struck by lightning. No, sorry that was what Federer’s wife was wishing for, what actually happened was, it rained.

The match was stalled and the players headed to the changing rooms, giving Nadal the much needed opportunity to take off his shirt on camera. When the play resumed, Federer looked a different player (some even said he looked like Zaheer Khan) and he forced the second set into a tie-breaker which he eventually went on to lose comprehensively. However you could tell he was heading toward something and that something was winning the third set, 7-5.

Suddenly everyone hoped there would be a heroic fight back from the former world number one but he quickly put those hopes to rest early on in the fourth set. In fact the most activity from Federer in the fourth set was done by his hair, which bounced and swayed in the French breeze. If only the same could be said about his returns.

This being the French Open the crowd was so well dressed that it looked like Nadal and Federer were playing the final in the middle of the spring collection catalogue of Donatella Versace. An example of their extreme fashion sense: Nearly everyone had hats on not because it was too sunny but because they were French.

Also a special mention must be made of the commentary which thankfully did not change after every five games and didn’t include Ravi Shastri. In a welcome change from the stuff we’re used to in cricket (“That’s a BIGGIE”, “The ball went like a tracer bullet to the fence” and the mother of all statements, “Whatever happens now, in the end cricket is the winner.”), the commentary was informed, intelligent and best of all, they kept quiet while the game was on and spoke only when Nadal was adjusting his underwear.

Coming back to the match, the final score, for those of you who keep track of such things was, Nadal winning: 7-5, 7-6, 5-7, 6-1. In winning the French Open, Nadal showed an all-around dominance, determination and a hunger to beat his opponent. In short all the things that mark a champion and/or a Delhite.

 

Our generation is indeed privileged to see two such great rivals, constantly battling it out with each other. Their contests provide us with such high level of entertainment, every single time they compete. One is all ready a legend and the other stands on the threshold of becoming a legend. We truly are blessed to have L. K. Advani and Sonia Gandhi.