Monsoon!

The monsoon rains are a welcome event after the summer that we have had. I have already complained enough about April and was able to keep my mouth shut through all of May for fear that you all would get sick of my whining (though the temps were above 90 F 21 days of the month) but for the last two weeks, the rains have come and brought with them mild days and cool nights. When I say the the rains have come for the last two weeks I should clarify and explain that they have come every single day for the past two weeks. You can almost set your watch to them, the mornings are cool and clear, around lunchtime the sky is a bright blue with a few puffy white clouds, but in the late afternoon dark clouds chase away the puffy ones and the skies open up. According to the weathermen here the monsoon officially began on June 1, though how they arrive at this date is beyond me. I don't have a lot of faith in meteorologists so I don't even bother to try to understand how they do their predictions, etc. I figure that it is probably equivalent to reading tea leaves or something of the sort...

Anyway, back to the monsoon. I am usually pretty lucky that I don't often get stuck walking in the rain, it often wraps up before I leave work in the early evening or holds off until I get home from the gym a couple of hours later. I am not always so lucky though and walking in the rain isn't exactly for the faint of heart. In fact, walking here at all is a fairly dangerous and nerve-wracking activity and the addition of flooded streets, overflowing sewers, drivers aiming to drench you with the nearest mud-puddle and pelting rain just adds to the excitement. I have to say though, I never experienced such a sense of accomplishment at just getting home as I have here in India. It is like being on American Gladiators each and every night except that instead of facing 'roided up opponents you instead have to take on vehicles, animals, the elements, the crumbling infrastructure, and the Travelator equivalent, the locals. All of this makes Helga look like a sissy, and if you can make your way down and across the streets every night, you are truly a champion. Some days I make it, and other days I have to admit that I suffer the agony of defeat. I have been hit by at least 2 motorcycles (okay, really just bumped, but still), I am accosted by strangers wanting either money, to talk, or god knows what, I have stubbed my toe so badly that it poured blood, I have tripped more times than imaginable, dodged more autorickshaws than I can stand and a few weeks ago I fell into a ditch while trying to side-step a mud-puddle. Luckily I landed on my feet but it was pretty embarrassing crawling out nonetheless.

On Saturday evening we experienced probably the most impressive rain shower that I have ever seen. I guess a shower isn't really an appropriate term, more like rain torrent. It was crazy and the rain came down in a way that I have never experienced. I was sure that the water was going to flood into our apartment because it just couldn't drain off of our balcony fast enough (we even have 2 drains). Lucky for us though, no flooding, just a power outage from around 5:30 PM until 9:30 PM. Despite the new set of problems brought on by the arrival of the monsoon, I will take it over the long hot days of summer anytime!

Paranoia

I just thought that I would include an addendum to my last post as it has kicked up a fair number of paranoid delusions among former students in the GH lab who are now afraid that the senior members felt similar disgust and disappointment toward them (ahem, Shantala and Rashmi). Take it easy you guys, if we thought you were idiots or didn't like you believe me, you would know it.