Constable's clouds

Jet Airways' flight 9W 381 to Indore was like any other flight to anywhere else. It involved a take-off, a cruise, and then a landing. But like every other journey, what lay beyond the window made it different. Somewhere over Powai lake, the aircraft returned to level. Below was a groggy Bombay. So there was little movement, except for specks of orange and white around temples on hilltops.

But up where we were, there was a different spectacle. In the distance a single layer of thick clouds stretched across the horizon, like an unreal world floating above the real one. They were dark grey and white and grey and pale. They were the same colour as the clouds in John Constable's paintings after his wife died. This was where Odin and Thor and all my Marvel-Comic-characters would play and woo and wage war. This was our monsoon.