After scorching heat, the monsoon has arrived in Mumbai. Over the last two consecutive weekends (June 23-24 & June 30-July 1), there were disruptions to normal life due to heavy showers. Thank God, those were weekends; otherwise, the lives of 20 million people would have been affected in some way or another, given that many schools and offices are closed. We mostly stayed indoors, and I only ventured out twice to nearby shops to get some grocery shopping done for the forthcoming week.
Almost all modes of transport were severely affected; local trains, which symbolize the lifeline of Mumbai, were stopped, causing great difficulties for people flying in and out of Mumbai. Despite all the challenges, Mumbai was back to business on Monday. This city and its people are quite resilient, but as first-timers to the monsoon, we are taking things with surprise. The monsoons of Western India are well known to us, as we were taught about their significance in our geography classes and how they impact the livelihood of farmers in this subcontinent.
The pictures were taken by one of our Support Engineers at Worli. Due to heavy rain, around 2000 customers of MTNL (the state-owned Telco) were affected. One of those 2000 customers was ours (a big multinational bank), and its services were compromised for a week. Counterparts sitting in developed countries don’t understand why it takes seven days to get a link fixed during the monsoon. Basically, they don’t have an idea of what monsoon is?
I’m sure people would appreciate the hard effort put in by the telephone line-men; they had to pump out water from the trench before fixing this mess. A red salute to all those people who keep Mumbai going through tough times like this.
Headline suggestion: ""