monsoon

May & June were bad, hot and dusty. But July was really horrible. The unfulfilled promise of rain can be borne for about a month so June was bearable, but when the dry days go into July, it starts to become scary and unbearable. Thankfully mid August brought a good spell of rain. It's still raining. This city gets wonderful in the monsoon....cool and just wet enough.
What amazes me is the clockwork precision that the monsoon has under normal circumstances(and we have destroyed that). It reaches Delhi on the 29th june. One year long ago, on the 29th june, I was standing at the 6th floor window of my lab. I could see the smoke stack of the Badarpur thermal palnt and a huge black mass of cloud advancing slowly from the southerly direction....a HUGE bank of black clouds in one single mass.
It was awe inspiring. The rains broke in two hours and my way home was knee deep in water.
Another monsoon few years back, I was driving out to buy my grocery, when I saw a similar black mass advancing. It was amazing...I drove along and was in the downpour within a few minutes....the sight is truly awesome.....clear blue summer sky bordered by black cloud mass stretching endlessly.
The most awesome rain, though it was not monsoon time, was the day I was at a beach all alone...one lone crab catcher in the distance and a storm brewing on the Bay of Bengal. The sight was fascinating and frighteneing. I was about 12 and I truly felt the power of nature. Storm on the sea is absolute power-display. If ever God wanted to teach a human being that He is powerful, he just has to show him a thunder storm on a sea. I wonder how sailors don't cower in their bunks when a storm comes up during their voyage...sailors are truly brave.