Meghdoot or Mritydoot? A figure of enchanting rain-filled clouds or a messenger of death due to rain?
Kalidas’s Meghdoot, one of the finest works in Sanskrit poetry, describes the rainy season in ways both scenic and sensuous. The sight is still sensuous and scenic if you watch monsoon clouds pouring down rain over the Arabian Sea while standing near Mumbai’s two iconic luxury hotels: the Oberoi at Marine Drive and the Taj at Gateway of India. But, if you travel during the rains to the slums of the city, or to colonies with old and about-to-crumble buildings (16,000 of them), you realise that death and disease never stay far away.
Life has no value for the poor in India’s wealthiest city. Over 30 people died within the first two days of this year’s delayed arrival of rains in Mumbai. Here are a few lines from three front-page reports in The Times of India dated 3 July.
“Two sections of a long concrete wall around a BMC (Bombay Municipal Corporation) installation on a hillock in Malad (East) came crashing down under the pressure of rain water and swept away dozens of shanties, killing 22 people, including ten children.”
“Two other wall crashes kill 4; 2 electrocuted.”
“In a chilling throwback to the 2005 tragedy (when 1094 were killed in a deluge in the city), two persons were suffocated to death after getting locked inside their SUV that was stuck in deep water in the Malad subway.”