One thing Bombay does not have is the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter — and it is poorer for that. It has only two seasons: summer and the monsoon. Towards November-December, it’s a little cooler but not cool enough for a sweater. So to term this period winter would be inapt.What one misses along with the seasons is the drama of their changing — winter melting into spring, spring stretching into summer, summer changing into autumn, autumn freezing into winter, and all that it entails. The change in the rhythm of life, the differences in temperature, the stretching out or contracting of the day and the night, the change of vegetation.In Bombay we only get excited in early June, when the rains come. If you are a monsoon person, in a good year Bombay gets the best rains in the world. Not too much. Not too little. On two or three days in a season, the city will be brought to its knees by the downpour. But then things quickly return to normal. The rains leave the city cooler, and cleaner. They lift the spirits. You don’t need an excuse to sit at home and observe the pitter-patter on the window pane. The atmosphere gets a little sticky but it is not a cloying stickiness. And of course the few trees we have in Bombay and the few open spaces turn green.The sea gets all tempestuous and if you want a little excitement, you can go for a walk along Marine Drive. The sea breezes bear the fragrance of salt and hope. It’s also a great time to get out of the city and go into the Western Ghats, which are astoundingly green, reminding one of the Lake District or Ireland. But it is winter that we miss in Bombay — and the snow. I keep in touch with winter by speaking to my brother who lives in Denver Colorado and has to shovel a foot of snow from his backyard every day of the season. I recall the beauty of winter landscapes — white on white — and wonder how Bombay would have coped with snow. And then I tell myself that, like in all things, the Bombayites would have taken it in their stride.
