For 7 years, he hated rains: CEO says the same monsoon feels different for the rich and poor after growing up in a flooded house

For many people in Mumbai, the monsoon is something to look forward to. It brings thoughts of cutting chai, long drives, old Hindi songs and watching the rain from the window. But for others, the season has meant flooded homes, sleepless nights and the struggle to protect whatever little they had. That difference was recently highlighted by Shubham Gune, founder and CEO of advertising and marketing agency Hinglish, who shared how the same rain has carried two completely different meanings in different phases of his life.

In a post on LinkedIn, Gune looked back at his childhood in a Mumbai chawl and compared it with the life he has today. His post has struck a chord with many people, as it showed how financial security can completely change the experience of something as ordinary as rainfall.

When every rainy night was a struggle

Gune began his post with a simple but powerful line: "For 7 years, I hated rains." He explained that he grew up in chawls in Bombay where heavy showers often meant water entering the house. "I've lived in chawls in Bombay where rainwater would come inside the house. If it rained hard at night, nobody could even dream of sleeping."


He described how the flooding usually started around midnight. "The water would come in around midnight, first through the window, then under the door, then slowly across the whole floor."

His family had to quickly move whatever they could save before spending the night trying to remove the water. "We would lift the mattress, the clothes, the books, the shoes onto a small table and almirah's top shelf, and then start emptying the house with buckets, fill and throw, fill and throw, till the rain slowed down or the sun came up."

Monsoon looked different from where he stood

Gune also reflected on how Mumbai's rains are often shown as beautiful in films and popular culture. For him, those images never matched reality while he was growing up.

"Mumbai loves to make rain look beautiful. The cutting chai, Marine Drive, wet windows, old film songs. For years, that beautiful rain was not for people like me." He then added, "I understand it now."

Looking back after spending a decade building his life in the city, Gune said the monsoon no longer brings fear into his home.

"Ten years in this city, and today the same rain falls on a home it cannot enter. The floor stays dry, the night sleep isn't disrupted, and I stand at my window watching the rain slide down the glass, with a thank you in my heart that only the boy who once threw water out of his own house at 2 am would understand."

He summed up his journey with a line that many readers found deeply relatable. "The same rain falls differently on different roofs. I have lived under both."

Ending his post on a note of gratitude, Gune wrote, "So when it rains now, I still fold my hands. Only the prayer has changed. Thank you god and all my well wishers for turning my life around. I am eternally grateful."