Reporting live from Mumbai

Hi, this is Swapna, reporting the weather conditions live from Mumbai. It’s been 1.5 months now since we shifted back to India from US. I have been getting mails from my friends asking about my whereabouts, so I thought I will write a post and update everyone at once.

Firstly, the Mumbai weather has changed drastically over the past few days. We had the temperature dropping to 8 degrees this time. Never in my entire life in Mumbai (I could have written, “Never in my X number of years in Mumbai”, but that would mean divulging my age.) have I seen the temperature drop below 10degrees. Two weeks back, the Times reported that Mumbai had experienced the lowest temperature in 42 years. I felt cold after reading the news. After a week, it dropped even further. I leave for work at sharp 7.15 am and faced the full brunt of the cold. I see the building security guards warming their hands over a small fire, and every morning I feel jealous of them. How I wish I could join them and sit feeling the warmth, instead I would bravely rush off to face the cold. The worst part of the day was the rickshaw ride to the station. As the rickshaw zooms off at full speed, I would start shivering and pull my sweater close to my body.
Since the past 4-5 days, there has been a sudden change in the weather. The cold weather has suddenly turned hot, forcing us to turn on the fans at night.

US to India transition: The transition went off pretty smoothly. Luckily, P and I didn’t suffer from jet lag this time. He had to resume work immediately, while I spent the whole of January enjoying the last few days of my 1.5 years vacation. I relaxed, slept a lot, shopped for our house, cleaned it, and started cooking. I managed to secure a good job at a company and started working from 1st Feb. At first, the idea of going to work on a daily basis seemed daunting. I would be working after a long gap of 1.5 years. I was a bit apprehensive about the whole ‘leaving home early in the morning and rushing off to work’ process, but after 4-5 days I got used to it. Of course, all the ‘aaram’ I did in US has boomeranged back at me. My office hours are 8.30-5 and it takes 1 hour to commute to office. I get up at 5.30AM (yawn), get ready, make chapattis, and rush off to work. I sleep at sharp 11pm. I shout at P if he switches on the TV after that. We both have converted from night owls to morning persons.

Do I miss US?: Definitely. But not so much as I had thought I would. I was confident that I would crib endlessly about the pollution, the traffic jams, the hectic travel; but I accepted certain facts and moved on. I miss all my close friends back in Louisville. Other thoughts come to my mind very subtly and unexpectedly:
#I think of US when I open my wallet and see dollars and cents mingling with rupees.
#I miss ‘Coldstone Creamery’ when I buy cakes or ice cream here.
#I miss our Mitsubishi Lancer when I see any black car zooming on the road.

How does it feel to be back home?: Simply superb! It feels great to be back among family and friends, or to attend weddings and poojas, or to eat all the junk food that I terribly missed in US. Most of all, it feels great to stay in the house that we missed the last one year. We both feel belonged here, unlike feeling like a guest in US.
In the past 1.5 months, we attended a superb concert by Ustaad Zakir Hussain, saw Tare Zameen Par, and visited the Vasai fort and beach. I will post the reviews soon. I terribly miss posting on Dreams come true and Swad. I should be getting Internet connection in the next week, so stay tuned for more news from Amchi Mumbai!