03 JULY - MUMBAI RAINS

For those who have never experienced Mumbai in the monsoons, film maker Basu Chatterjee's depiction in the song, "Rim Jhim Gire Sawan" is a feel-good tour of the city's rain splashed landmarks. It is complete with Lata Mangeshkar's dulcet vocals, puddles you can jump in, waves that drench you and the romance of walking hand in hand on roads unclogged by traffic.

This was the seventies version of the Mumbai monsoon of course. Over the years, the city's infrastructure has almost given away because of increasing population, an ill-maintained drainage system, and an overall inefficiency that results in routine flooding, the slowing down of the public transport system to a crawl, collapsing buildings and walls.

This is Seetal, and today we are not just talking about the latest episode in Mumbai's never ending saga of monsoon troubles but why things never seem to change.