…The title pretty much sums up my feelings about this week. In a good way though. Last night, after begging for the rains to come for weeks on end, we finally had our first real, pre-monsoon rains while we’ve been in Rajasthan. The monsoon season has finally, finally hit us up North. Aunty-ji came into my room and beckoned toward me, saying “Come here!” in Hindi. When I stepped outside, there wasn’t a sweeter sight or feeling in the world of those beautiful raindrops glistening on my skin.
…Until the rain started seeping under the window cracks in my room and flooding the whole floor with rainwater, that is. Good times. I had fun jumping around in the puddles in my room and frantically trying to get rid of the water with a Squeegee alongside my Aunty-ji, when the power went out! Not uncommon at all in India, but it made the task of cleaning up my room and trying to prevent more rainwater from so very problematic. Another one of my housemates got completely drenched though, so I guess I’m lucky in comparison.
The power eventually came back on and we managed to clean the room, but not before the water started flooding back in a second time. I’m now sitting in a pani-free room, but for a while, I thought I would be swimming with the fishes. Or in Rajasthan, more likely, the lizards. Apparently, according to Uncle-ji and the newspapers, there was 3 feet of water on some of Jaipur’s roads at one point. It’s all gone now, but when the monsoons hit in full force, I expect there to be a constant 2-3 feet of water on the ground at all times. At night, I was woken up when some ridiculously huge ‘monsoon bugs’ (calling them these because I don’t know what the heck they’re actually called, and I’m not sure I’d like to know more about them) infiltrated my room. Had a fun time dodging those babies. Can’t dodge the mosquitoes though. One of the few minor things that has always irritated me about being in India: mosquito bites. Those critters totally love to feast on my blood. Om nom. I was told I should consider that a compliment, but it’s a little hard to do that while I’m busy itching left-and-right.
Today though, the weather was gorgeous (well, for Rajasthan, that is). All the annoying stickiness that comes with the pre-monsoon humidity had almost evaporated, and in its place was a nice 15 degree temperature drop. Sweeeet. The air feels different, and the sky looks different too. In India, when the rainy season comes and it’s not raining, the weather is lovely. When the rain is pouring down in sheets, it’s a little less fun.
Here’s a pic of the clouds gathering and the general weather from the deck in my host family’s home.
I will also
post some pics of a trip I took to Sanganer last week, and Hawa Mahel and Jantar Manthar this week. The entire album will be posted on FB in due course. I’m heading off to Udaipur tomorrow, so keep an eye out for more pics and another blog post about that next week. 🙂
Breaking the Box 