I thought to sit around with a Canon D40 DSLR in this beautiful Mumbai Monsoon weather is criminal, and so I decided to take a trip down 25 kilemeters away, deep into downtown Mumbai city. The monsoons are a real treat to experience anywhere in India and this I believe is especially because it comes after an arduously long sweltering heat, dipped in the 90% humidity levels that are so normal in the coastal areas in India. Apart from this abundance of grateful relief that the monsoons command, it is also in the pictures that the monsoons seem to paint, quite literally, within the course of its first spell that lasts for a couple of days, that it infests every human that witnesses its marvel.
The dusty roads are washed to a clean dark tar colour, sun kissed leaves turn a meadowy green and the white lilies and gulmohars touch an extreme level of colour saturation. I am not mentioning the colourful umbrellas that come out or the puddles on the roads and in the gardens, the staple signs of the rainy season anywhere in the world, because these signs don't lend its uniqueness to the identity of the Monsoons. The transformation from the dry to the coloured (note, not wet) is the parallel that is what the Monsoons mean here.
To add to this specialty, are other ingenious attributes that typify the Mumbai monsoons. Several of these is what I expected not to capture in my trip downtown one sunday morning. I believed I would see just what I had grown to understand are the colours of the monsoon that I've written about above. But serendipity awaited, sometimes that does happen, and I saw much more than what an average Mumbaikar might expect changes during a monsoon.
These are pictures when the clouds had receded for that weekend, leaving behind their watermarks just for a while before they chose to return again.
I rode on the new Bandra worli sea link, a long awaited suspension bridge that links the edge of the Mumbai surburbs, Bandra, to one of the centers of commerce, Worli. Cutting the travel time by a invaluable amount, it has added much needed character in the landscape of Mumbai and a inspiring view of the ravaging sea that churns and curdles in torment during the monsoons.
I especially loved a picture I happened to click while driving down the bridge. I found it to be a unusual frame to catch the Mumbai skyline with an unusually magnificent blue sky.
Typical Old Mumbai structures that are struggling to keep their presence in the urban vista that are fast moving to high-rises and malls being built on the turf of demolished old structures.
Here come the surprising murals of the waterscapes of Mumbai.
The dark sea contrasted with the deep blue sky at Marine drive.
The clouds in an array likening to the smoke from the chutes of the old world steam engines.
View of the Hotel Trident, a landmark of Mumbai that was restored after the tragic terrorist torture that Mumbai saw in November of 2008.
The view of the backbay and Cuffe parade, the absolute southern end of the Mumbai seven islands.
More brilliant colours...
Lastly, a unfocused watermark of Eros, a age old movie theater in the prime location of Churchgate and a scrawny boy who performs street acts with his monkey, an ancient (not sure if I should call it an art form?) source of amusement that in all probability will not see the next decade.
