Monsoon

About ten days ago, it was declared that the monsoon had arrived in these parts, which is, of course, a very good thing. Chennai has a really big water problem and really depends on a voluminous rainfall over October-November to fill aqueducts and recharge aquifers. While there were some heavy showers, it was not quite what I was expecting, particularly with the long periods of blue sky in-between. I was expecting cats and dogs and it was gnats and ants (literally). Last night that all changed, however. It has been pouring—and I mean POURING for the last 14-15 hours. I didn’t know that much water could fall out of the sky at one time.

Of course, this has led to tremendous flooding—and because we do not have a TV, I’m only aware of a small sliver of what’s going on in the city—and no where to go, but stay inside. I have to say that it is a nice change of pace to have an entire day where is the sun is hidden from view and you can get just the slightest hint of fall. Yesterday, Joyce remarked how cold it has become—around a low of 72 at night—I didn’t know how to tell her that that is as hot as it gets in some places that I’ve lived, and in those places when the thermometer hits 50, you strip off all your clothes and worship the sun! God, how did I ever live in Michigan?

Kaia seems to enjoy watching the heavy rain. There has been this tractor making passes on the beach, picking up trash and rototilling the sand, for the past few days and, of course, he’s been loving that. A few days ago he woke up from his nap, in a semi-conscious state pleading to ‘see tractor, see tractor’. He can be very obsessive--in the photo to the right, he wondering "hmm, where IS that tractor?" But now that the weather has turned and I’m waiting for Noah’s Ark to appear, there are no beach cleaning tractors to be found. And while there are some determined Indians who will trudge through waist deep water to get from here to there, I think we’ll try to avoid the leptospirosis and enjoy some inside time.

Why I Love this Time: Playing ‘cooking’.