Monsoon August 2010

                                             

 

 

We didn’t really have a monsoon last year, it was just bloomn hot. This year, however the heavens have opened up and tossed truck after truck after truck load of water on New Delhi.

Coming from a droughtstricken country, I can honestly tell you that I have never seen so much rain in my life .. actually now that I think of it, I never saw that much in England either!

We had 104.2mm of rain on Friday 20th August!!!!!

It’s kinda nice, in that the dust has been forced to settle, but then there’s mud and goo and gloop and rubbish strewn everywhere by torrents of water, but hey at least the leaves on the trees are clean once more!

That wet stuff that falls from the sky causes absolute chaos here.  Don't even ask what the impact of these torrential downpours is on the Commonwealth Games ... doesn't take Einstein to figure that one out!

The poorly constructed roads open up and 5 foot deep potholes appear.  Someone comes round and fills them up with bricks overnight and then another massive pothole appears further down the road. 

  

Driving on the roads can be treacherous cause if you come across one of those potholes hidden under the water, your axel could break or, god forbid your car might just disappear into one of them.

Tarpaulins magically appear and people living on the street fortify their tents and huts with these blue tarps and whatever other rainproofing they can lay their hands on.  Surviving the monsoon is tough, with firewood drenched, housing sodden or flooded, clothing saturated ... as if life here isn’t hard enough without having to battle these conditions.

Plastic bags appear on people’s heads, turban’s feet & bicycle seats and naked little boys run around gleefully jumping in puddles.  Pavement vendors try, in vain to keep the water from their ruining their wares, fruit carts are abandoned when it tosses down and street dogs seek higher water for fear of being drowned.

Everyone’s wet, trousers are rolled up, shirts are stuck to lithe bodies, sari’s are duly gathered up and people walk ever so slowly through the muddy rivers, which used to be roads, hoping they won’t trip over something dangerous or fearful their shoes won’t float away.

 

Business continues, it has to ... cardboard has to be recycled, milk still has to be delivered, buses still need to transport hundred’s of sodden people peering through windows of condensation and kids still need to be picked up from school.

   

I didn’t know heavy rains brought out dragonflies but the sky was full of them that afternoon.  Also seeking dry ground were the humungous chitti (ants) and worms that were at least 6inches long!

My mulberry tree is thriving, I seem to have finally had success with an Aussie avocado seed, but my poor Amaltas saplings are struggling with all this water and a few frangipani trees have succumbed to their weight in sodden soil.

  

My vege seedlings just cannot grow, not with this much water!  There’s mould on the surface soil, my zucchinis have given up the trauma of drinking all that water, the radishes have swollen and split with the rain and heat, my tomatoes are drowned, herbs like dill and thyme just don’t stand a chance, but my palak (spinach), peppery rocket and basil seem to love tons and tons of water .... lucky for that eh?  And ... the chipmunks are getting past the netting and running round like maniacs in my vege patch ... little blighters! 

 

I’m loathe to plant my precious new seedlings and expose them to troughs of water, cause they’re quite happy in their little seedling trays right now, growing at a rate of knots I’ve never before witnessed in my life!  

 

from seeds to seedlings in 7 days!

and in the lakes that appeared almost instantly in our garden ......

  

 

there was great fun to be had ....

 

  

yes the water was deep enough for the dolphins to float!

Ohhhhhh ..... and "singing in the rain" too!