If I had to make a collage or moodboard of the life I’d like to live, and the life I would like Jasper to grow up living, it wouldn’t include a single image of a city. It would be packed with lush green foliage, clear blue skies, beaches, sunsets, coffees, cocktails, fresh seafood, still-warm cakes, hikes, trail runs, peaceful sunrises and romantic sunsets, mountains, valleys, islands, farmlands, cricket pitches, sailing boats and, of course, a family photo. This collection of images would be in such high definition that you could lick the dew off the leaves, inhale the freshness of the air and bask in the warmth of the sun.
Alas, we live in Mumbai and that means that when the opportunity to enjoy even a tiny slice of this dream peaks out from between cars, buildings or people, we have to take it. Or at least, that’s what I learned last year. On my second run at the season between January and April, I am doing everything in my power to avoid emerging from it with as many regrets as I suffered last year from having failed to participate in any of the activities that need to be done before the hot, sticky season and its cooler but slimier cousin the monsoon season, settle in for their annual occupation of the atmosphere.
Yes, I am talking about the weather—of course I am, I’m British. Except I’m not focussing on what a lot of weather we’ve been having lately. Rather, I am talking more specifically about the lack of weather there has been (and is every year at this time) and as a result, what a lot of outdoor pursuits we have been able to enjoy.
This time last year I was still relatively fresh off the boat and was comfortably reclined in an attitudinal position of watching and assessing the rhythm of Mumbai and its people. I told myself, on arriving in the city back in March 2022, that I should spend one year in this state of observation: getting a feel for the ebb and flow of festivals; acclimatising to the day-to-day customs; understanding the turgidity of the traffic; inducting my senses to the music, the flavours, the smells and the colours; understanding the literal and figurative lay of the land as far as opportunities to travel and explore.
For the most part, this approach was a good one, especially with Jasper on hand to help me ask what were probably very obvious questions about what was going on around us and to pass off my ignorance as childish curiosity. That is, until it came to the period of January to April, the golden window of opportunity as far as excursions are concerned, when my inertia left me green-eyed and wistful. Outdoor events, day trips, staycations, weekend breaks and longer escapes are on everyone’s minds at this time of year because the threat of less temperate weather looms so large on the horizon. Watching and waiting simply led to me missing and regretting opportunities to get out of Mumbai, and made it hard for me to find playdates for Jasper because his toddler crew were so jet-set.
The more weekend breaks I asked about, the more resentment I felt towards flamingoes, wineries, farm stays, beach clubs, mountain villages, petting zoos, national parks, tiger safaris, music festivals, boat trips, second homes, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, the Maldives and, unfairly, Dylan’s inflexible work schedule. Unsurprisingly, it was around this time last year that I resigned myself to admitting that Mumbai is a hard city to live in.
But NOT. THIS. YEAR.
This year, despite me now also having a work schedule to outmanoeuvre in order to accommodate a break from the routine, we are doing much better at taking advantage of the good weather. Since the start of 2024, I can proudly say that no two weekends have been the same. Granted, it has helped that I spent 10 days in the UK, and Dylan has spent a week in Singapore, but even outside of individual international travel commitments, our Mumbai life has been vibrant and varied. And not confined to Mumbai.
Inspired by how good it felt to get out and exercise during my brief but dazzling cricket career in January, I have taken up running at the racecourse on Wednesday evenings. I say ‘have taken up’ —I have done it twice and the action was probably better described as a plod than as a run, but I do it as much (or maybe more) for the mental benefits than for any physical ones. I do my best thinking (and my least screen-checking) when I am running and often long for a running commute like I used to enjoy in London many moons ago.
The biggest shame is that while the air temperature invites us to spend time outside, the air quality does not. This time of year is when Mumbai starts breaking records no self-respecting city wants to break: smashing AQI standards to smithereens. AQI is Air Quality Index for those of you not bothered by it, and gives a rating for just how many tiny PM2.5 particles of dust, dirt and other pollutants we are breathing in on a daily basis. For a sense of the scale: Jersey sits at about 7 usually; London at around 30; Mumbai on a good day is about 130. A good day, that is. At this time of year, Mumbai regularly pushes up over the 200 scoreline and the people take to the internet to complain about all the construction dust from what is essentially a pan-city construction site, what with the new metro, the extended sealink (road out into the sea to ease downtown congestion), the overpasses, the underpasses, the residential developments and the office towers.
I consider myself a veteran of poor AQI, from my time in Beijing, and have developed my own fairly accurate lung-gauge of whether I am breathing air or sand. Every time the outrage starts to surge here in Mumbai, I am reminded of life in Beijing, and in particular, of the Twitter gaff made by the US Embassy, back in 2010. In lieu of any transparency from the Chinese government about the air quality, the US embassy installed some system whereby they were able to take readings and then tweeted about those readings on an hourly basis. Given that Twitter was blocked in China, they got away with it for a considerable length of time because nobody of much importance in the country (or outside for that matter) paid much attention to it. They would tweet in layman's terms, stating that the AQI was good (very rarely), moderate (often), unhealthy for sensitive groups (more often), unhealthy (even more often) and hazardous (not that often, luckily). That is, until for several hours on a particularly smoggy day, the Twitter feed was broadcasting the air quality to be ‘Crazy Bad’. At an AQI of over 500, it was a fair statement, but perhaps not as professional as the US Embassy preferred. They subsequently changed the label to ‘beyond index’ and we saw that a few more times. Mumbai has never reached 500, but in mid-February this year, just a few weeks ago, it tipped past 400 and my lungs struggled to syphon oxygen from the sand settled deep in their depths.
For those of you who haven’t lived in a polluted place, breathing dirt burns as it hits the back of your throat and your nasal passages are caked permanently in the scent of muddy toast. While the first time I ran at the racecourse was a blue sky dazzler, the second time was a pea-souper, but, as I mentioned, knowing that the mental benefits outweighed the physical anyway, I jogged on.
Dylan, too, has been able to take advantage of the weather and ignore the pollutant particles with a run of enhanced touch rugby and cricket opportunities. There was one evening rugby tournament at the Bombay Gymkhana, which saw Jasper and I spend a solid hour in the playground before heading into the main club for some dosa dinner.
And then there was a cricket match at the Western Railway cricket ground which is a beautifully well-kept ground just close to Dylan’s work. Jasper even got himself a job working the scoreboard for the afternoon, although he was quickly fired when he lost interest in keeping to the actual score. At regular rugby, we have been changing up our activities by taking Jasper’s sand toys and pretending the school’s long jump pit is a tiny, private beach.
The peak of our out of the house activities has actually been an out of the city adventure involving a boat ride, two nights in a beach hut, rugby on the sand and a pool party. Without wanting to give away any spoilers ahead of the full post I will write about the entire weekend, I think Jasper summed it up the best when he asked, on disembarking the ferry we’d been sipping ice cold beers (or apple juice in his case) aboard for a little over an hour: ‘Are we still in India?’ So dramatically different was the mood and feel and pace and air quality in Alibaug, a coastal region directly south from SoBo (that’s South Bombay, for those of you wondering), that we might as well have been in a new country and we returned to the city after those 48 hours feeling as refreshed as if we had been.
I might not have had any time to write but, when I scroll back through my photos, the montage is satisfyingly reflective of the life I want to be living.
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