Books, Backpacks, and Flooded Bylanes: The Rains that Tested Mumbai’s Monday Morning

Mumbai woke up today to skies heavy with clouds, but not enough to ring alarm bells. Schools across the city remained open, with parents and children navigating their usual morning routines. The rains, though steady, didn’t seem threatening enough to disrupt classes. But by the afternoon, the story had changed.

The Andheri subway was shut, Juhu’s bylanes were flooded, and waterlogging had started creeping into some of the main roads. What had begun as a normal school day ended with students, teachers, and parents battling their way through the city’s first major downpour of the week.

“We thought it was just drizzle in the morning…”

Students were the first to feel the shift from mild inconvenience to full-blown chaos.

“I reached 10 minutes late for a 9 am exam despite having a 15-minute proximity from my school. I left an hour earlier and saw a traffic jam like never before”, said a child from Mumbai’s Christ Church School, Byculla.

Some schools even faced challenges in dispersal, as buses and vans were delayed by slow-moving traffic and flooded shortcuts.

Teachers caught in the middle

For teachers, the rains brought a dilemma. With no official warning in the morning, keeping schools open felt like the safe option. But as conditions worsened, they had to step in to reassure students and coordinate with parents.

“Been raining for the past few days, but morning school timings saw a little bit of a hiccup but not much distress. 9th and 10th grade students had decent to good attendance, but the apprehension of parents whose students didn’t show up is very valid. Juhu by-lanes on my way home were flooded but other than that the spirits of the city didn’t dull,” said Geetika Wadhwa, a teacher from Mumbai’s Maneckji Cooper School

Parents torn between calm and chaos

Parents, meanwhile, were caught in a familiar monsoon tug-of-war: whether to trust the morning’s calm or anticipate the afternoon’s havoc.

“When we woke up this morning, we didn’t peg the rain to be something to fear. So, I sent my child, but the turn of events by noon today triggered my fatherly instinct to kick in, and I picked my child up early from school. And thank God that I did because it took a turn for the worse right after,” said Freddy Jussawalla a resident of Dadar.

By dispersal time, messages and calls were flying across WhatsApp groups, with families coordinating pickups and sharing updates on traffic and flooding.

A reminder of resilience

While the city didn’t see catastrophic flooding today, the sudden shift from manageable to disruptive conditions served as a reminder of how unpredictable Mumbai’s monsoon can be.

For students, the day was less about math or science and more about having fun with their peers in such rain in dull, gloomy classrooms. For parents and teachers, it was yet another reminder that in Mumbai, the rains are as much a part of school life as uniforms and homework.

“Every monsoon, we learn to adapt a little faster,” said Dheeraj Mehta, a parent who’s child studies in Kangaroo Tods nursery, South Mumbai, summing up the city’s attitude as the skies continued to pour.