Where are you my dear lady?

Where art thou ?

Why have you abandoned us?

As usual the dates were fixed for June 1st but you did not grace us with your presence?

At times we might have cribbed when you unleashed your full power but please dont treat them seriously. You should know that we cannot be without you. There are some of us who make annual trips just to see you, to touch you.We carry precious memories of your visits and nothing can compare to you.

Yes it is the monsoon that I am talking about. Normally by the end of June the rivers would be full and so would the dams. But this year monsoon seems to have abandoned Kerala. If she does not make an appearance Kerala is doomed! Without power and water, what shall it’s residents do? Even those standing in queue for their daily spirit would need a bit of water 🙂

Every year when we go for vacation we watch the river slowly rising. Although monsoon can be a bit irritating  Keralites know that without it, the state would die a slow death.

It is time for prayers!

Another Monsoon

Another monsoon awaits us and I hear that the final “venal mazha” or the Summer rains are now pouring down. This time they have predicted the monsoon to arrive earlier. The monsoon seems to have turned out to be a like a choosy lady these days! Anyway, as long as she continues her much awaited visits, it is fine.

Finished shopping and we only need to cram the bags as usual.

The other day we visited “Platform”, a shop for hardware. Somehow I liked the concept, else who would want to spend shopping time in a hardware shop!

I am not sure if they have this kind of a showroom in India. (The Platform concept was launched by Saint Gobain (SG), Europe’s leading manufacturer and distributor of building materials, in 1998. It has since then become the fastest growing business within SG’s €20 Billion-Distribution Division with a network of more than 70 stores in 10 European and South American markets.)

At “Platform” those who are building a house will get to see every item that will go into it. There are also all kinds of tools; to buy and also for hire. The foldable ladder looked very handy. We went there since the almost 20 year old Union door lock back home is showing signs of ageing and Hubby wanted to shift it from the front door (demoted I guess!). The penchant for Union Lock is still there but we found that the price has moved up too high. We settled for another lock and found that there are many good locks from India too. Since we may find no time to go lock searching in India, we settled for UK locks. No point in buying an Indian product for India from Kuwait.

We also ended up buying a few knick knacks for the bathrooms and also some handy tools. The bathroom fittings are good and those who want to spend more money can wander into a separate show room of “Aquamondo” where they have displayed a few beautifully fitted bathrooms. I clicked a few photographs outside the shop.

We wound up that day’s shopping with a sumptuous Arabic meal from a local restaurant.

Monsoon here we come…

Been very busy lately and finally we should soon be preparing to greet the monsoon and the hartals!

For those of us who wait eagerly to board the flight, our main concern should be hartals and nothing else. There are even websites giving schedule of the hartals and until this hour the coast seems clear for us to land.

As for the monsoon, this year it was playing truant with Kerala. It was supposed to drench the thirsty State on May 29th but it showed up briefly and left.. again to reappear mildly. And now it is back in full force. Makes me wonder if it was indeed waiting for us!

But what is Kerala without its monsoon?

This month’s Readers Digest too had an article on the Indian monsoon.

So here I go in great anticipation, to capture some beautiful memories once again….

Rain

The day that I mentioned that there is no rain.. it started with a bang.. started late at night with thunder and lightening.. nd then crash… heavy rain with mighty winds….
Can smell the rain drenched air at night and it is so cooling.. needs no A/C and no fan.. talking about fan.. the current leaves us as soon as the rain starts… nd the inverter too is not upto the mark.. but still we are enjoying.. tomorrow hope to visit a few relatives..

until then… adieu…

Count Down

Only 2 more days left to go.. and the rain is lashing heavily, disrupting, Air, Train and road traffic. The river next to our house is almost spilling over. If the rains continue in the same manner, I doubt a comfortable trip home since we have to travel almost 2 and half hours from the Airport. But come what may we have to go!

And there is no current since 3 days.. so if I am not online that means there is no electricity, hence no internet connection and no blogging!

Guess we should take our Bangalore trip earlier than planned. Wonder how the rains are treating Bangalore.

Rain

Ir rained for a while yesterday.. just enough to bring down the dust that never reached the ground so far.

Actually if it rains too long things will change drastically out here. It was in 1997 that we had the heaviest rain. I was working in the city at that time. It started around 3 PM and slowly we saw the water rising. And then it was utter chaos. I couldnt find our usual transport but luckily found a few friends. We hoppped into the car of a guy whom we met for the first time and started the journey around 6 PM. We could see water all around us and there were a few local boys helping us with directions. The most shocking site was a road with over head bridges.. it was completely submerged with a few cars stuck on the way down. And slowly we moved inch by inch.. Never have the residents seen such flooding in their entire lives.

We could reach home only after 11 PM. Luckily my maid was there to look after our daughter since even my Hubby could reach home only around that time.

We do wait for such occasions to come.. since there would be a holiday for sure.. but there was never a repition! There was another year where we had to return home after almost reaching the office.

Looking forward to see the monsoon and we have bought a fishing line this time. Since the river is right in front of our house we can try our luck. This will be the first time we will be fishing.

Monsoon

Today early in the morning the sky darkened and it started raining heavily for a short while. But it was enough to transport me home.. specially since we should be seeing the monsoon this year. I don’t think there is anything else so beautiful!
During one of our visits when the kids were small there was a flood. Our house is just a few feet away from the river with just a road to separate. When the rain starts one can see the water slowly changing its color. And when the rains have been heavier up in the mountains the water will become muddier. And then it will slowly creep up. Normally it stays just below the road but that year the rain was heavy and they had to open up a few dams. The water was all around the house and in our portico we could see fishes and small snakes. We were lucky that the bigger reptiles dint visit us, though this did happen to others. As for Hubby’s cousins as usual even this year they had to shift all their things to the second floor since the first floor was totally flooded! But for us visitors (from Gulf) it was fun time. The only hassle is that one cant venture outside but even this has its good side.. ur pockets r not drained!