Monsoon is striking back

It seemed like the monsoon itself read my blog. How impressive this season can be even in Delhi revealed itself after I posted my last blog, in which I described how different my expectations were from the real intensity of the monsoon rain. It has been raining, sometimes pouring, almost every day since then. Occasionally we even had a tremendous thunderstorm.

The same happened on our moving day. Finally, we were able to move from the second hotel into our (rented) apartment. That morning, I could hear the splashing of the rain before I even opened my eyes. Although the AC was running and the fan spinning, I was already able to hear the pattering rain. Many streets got flooded, that is how intense it was.

That is something you do not need on a moving day. Blocked streets, pouring rain and because of these incidences traffic jam all over the city. However, the move went much better than expected. It also was just a tiny move. Everything fitted in an Uber XL and ‘whoosh’ – the move was done.

On the topic of monsoon, I have some funny anecdotes to share with you.

Once I was on the way back to Delhi from the outskirts with my family. We were riding an OLA taxi on the highway, when it suddenly started to rain. And when I say suddenly, I literally mean suddenly. It was as if someone opened a floodgate and rain began gushing down. Well, we were still riding happily on the highway (a little bit slower because of the many potholes that had now become invisible), but still straightforward, when suddenly the traffic slowed down and became slower and slower until we were in a stop and go modus. Four lanes were creeping towards Delhi.

The picture of a big accident arose in my mind. I thought it that probably, there had been some crash because of all that heavy rain. Surely, I thought, this accident will have blocked one or two lanes, this is the reason for the traffic jam. And indeed, after a while I was able to spot that the traffic had slowed down because at a particular point, all the vehicles had to merge to the two right lanes.

But what I saw, when we reached that bottleneck of the highway, surprised me quite a bit. First, I was just puzzled, then I couldn’t but laugh out loud. That bottleneck was located right below a bridge. And under that bridge hundreds of motorbike and Vespa riders had huddled to find shelter from that heavy monsoon rain. Understandable. Nevertheless, they just blocked two highway lanes. Unthinkable in Germany (country of ‘the’ Autobahn), but here: Monsoon life.

Here is another anecdote. This story could have the following headline: “Pay attention when choosing a vehicle!”

Actually, I love to take tuc-tucs, the typical Indian green and yellow vehicles, for a ride through the streets of Delhi. Just the bad air is something that prevents me from doing it too often. Anyway, sometimes I indulge and take one anyway. My impression is, when I do so, that I am smack in the middle of all the action and I also like the breeze that goes through the almost completely open vehicle.

One morning, my husband and I needed to go quickly from A to B and we were not able to reach any taxi. For that reason, we hopped on a tuc-tuc, after we had bargained for a decent prize for the ride. “Yeah, great!”, we thought. “Just in time.” Because heavy rain started to pour down right in that moment. However, that this vehicle is almost entirely open was something we didn’t think about in that first second. Rain came in from all directions. My husband and I squeezed together as closely as possible, trying to protect ourselves from the rain. That worked for a while … but then we rode over a bumpy street with a lot of waterfilled potholes. Suddenly a huge car took over and that became my fate. Just when it was right next to us, it drove through an enormous puddle. The result: I was half-soaked. The lesson: “If it is raining, no tuc-tuc next time!”

A third and (for today) last anecdote deals with getting our fridge, which we had planned to do on a particular day. As the day came, my husband and I brought the kids to school and then started to run our errand. The weather was nice, or rather, like every day. A greyish overcast sky and the temperature: pretty warm.

After having been misdirected by Google, we finally took a taxi that brought us to a place, of that we knew for sure, that there was a store that had fridges on sale… not just one store, actually, several.

In the first store, we got a detailed introduction to various items, albeit the prices seemed rather high. Therefore, we wanted to see other options. But just when we were about to step out on the street we noticed that the monsoon had fooled us again. It was raining cats and dogs. And, of course, we had no umbrellas on us. Since it did not stop, we hopped over to the next shop, that was also a store for AC’s, TV’s, and for fridges, too. The fridges they had were not too exciting, hence we were waiting in the entrance area, hoping for the rain to pass. But the rain did not comply with our hopes. It was pouring and pouring. No end in sight.

We started to chat with the people in the shop and had various exchanges about politics, Hindi, India, and Germany. The conversation went on for over an hour. But outside, nothing changed. It kept pouring.

I tiptoed around the fridges for a second time and thought: “This silvery greyish one over there, that seems not too bad. When the shop keeper accommodated us with the price, ‘whoosh’, the fridge was bought, and the delivery organized.

Afterwards my husband and I we were wondering: “Would we also have bought the fridge, if it had not rained cats and dogs for hours?” Who knows… So far, we are happy with the fridge. And we learned something else from that trip: Always, really always, we have to have an umbrella with us during the monsoon time. Even if the sky looks as peaceful and calm as it possibly could. In seconds, it can be the opposite.

Next time I will find a rain-free topic. I promise. And now I say goodbye with a warmest “Namaste’!