Diwali Showers!

The rains have arrived!!! And as always just in time for Deepawali!!!

This year has been one hot sweltering bunch of months. After last year's long bout of heavy and incessant showers, it was not a surprise that 'kathiri - masam' this year was hotter than most years. That's how Chennai rolls – from one extreme to the other.

The rains of 2005 were the highest in the last decade; while the years before that - 2003 and 2004, were very very dry.
With power cuts due to water logging, flooded roads and houses, suspended trains, the angry monsoon took the lives of over ten thousand people. Even though Chennai is mostly a hot, dry city, the rains are welcomed with open arms and dirty feet by most people.

If only nature would have better timing! Every year, Diwali time is 'fire-cracker time', 'sweets time', 'new clothes time' and in Chennai, sadly, 'rain time'.

'Rain time' doesn't always negate crackers and fireworks. Invariably and incredibly the rain always stops exactly on Diwali letting everyone have their fun bursting crackers, lighting deepams or buying new clothes, as the case might be. (My personal preference, though, is eating the heavenly homemade sweets!)

And after all the noises of the Festival of Lights go quiet, the rains come down again, with a vengeance, as if to wipe the city clean of all the litter and smoke.

Although many righteous people might claim that bursting fire-crackers is to ignore a lot of issues like Child Abuse, Noise Pollution, Air Pollution, etc... Even they will have to admit, that with this year's rate of occurrence of Chicunguniya in the city, one good thing about the fireworks is that we will happily bid goodbye to Chennai's own pet creatures – the mosquitoes, at least for some time. All this, of course, is at the mercy of the whims of nature and the abetment of the heavy rains.

Now, before my computer shuts down – it's showing all signs of doing so at the rapid fluctuation in voltage corresponding to the intensity of the deluge outside, I better post this. As I am saved (again by the lovely showers, which receive no thanks from my mother) from taking the trouble to put laundry out for drying, I will curl up in bed, listening to Radio Mirchi while reading a book. What about college, you ask? Well, it's been cancelled due to the heavy rains!!!

Cross-posted at Chennaiist