First Monsoon, Mumbai

“Months of heat building. The air so thick you wear it. Then one afternoon the sky goes green-black and the wind changes and everyone stops. The first drops are huge, warm, individual. Then the wall of water. The whole city exhales. People pouring out of buildings, faces up, laughing. Kids in the street, fully clothed, fully soaked. Chai wallahs fire up the stoves because everyone needs cutting chai right now. The streets flood in minutes but nobody cares. The monsoon is here. We survived.”