3 posts tagged “monsoon”
As Chris sailed into his thirties, Mumbai was inundated with some pretty bad flooding. We had a small get together for him, and unfortunately only those in the near vicinity could come, but it was still a great time.
It's really raining these days! Check out these photos looking out on to what is usually a busy street in our neighborhood.
Expanding on that brief post below, the monsoon has definitely arrived. Summer turns into the monsoon season rather abruptly here -- it was pretty surprising to us newcomers. It has been incredibly hot for the last month (like, waking up sweating in the morning, multiple showers a day, soaked clothes even while inside with our AC on). There has been no rain since...October perhaps?
And then all of a sudden on Thursday evening, Beth and I step outside of a restaurant in Juhu after dinner and see a couple raindrops as we get into a rickshaw to go home -- within a minute or two it turns into a tropical thunderstorm. Everyone is soaked -- bike riders, walkers, etc. No one has umbrellas. The streets are instantly several inches deep in water in some parts. The hot evening's temperature drops instantly and the breeze picks up as the rain comes down. We see lightning and hear thunder almost every minute, first far away and then sounding as if it's getting closer. There's a real earthy smell to the rain -- I don't know how else to describe it. Literally, it smelled like dirt, but in a really pleasant way somehow. We make it home finally, fording puddle-strewn intersections, and watch the rain come down on our terrace.
After that evening, it's rained a little bit each day, and the weather is noticeably cooler. Within a week or so it's expected to really launch into the monsoon, with torrential rains coming down every day. I'm scrambling to get an awning built for our terrace so we can go outside during the next three months, and we see construction stepping up everywhere as people brace for the season -- trying to finish road work, roof patching, car repair, etc. We're really curious to see what happens to Bombay infrastructure this year -- the BMC (Bombay Municipal Corporation -- city gov) promises there will not be a repeat of 2005's catastrophic flooding, but given the amount of standing water we've seen on Bandra streets after this small amount of rain, we're starting to wonder...
