The end of the Monsoon

When the rains come to India.

As the monsoon comes to an end in Northern India, so does my tenure here.  The deluge last week caught many off guard, although the growing, grey clouds were visible atop the skyline of New Delhi.  The rain lasted in spurts most of the afternoon and evening; at times coming down at an outright downpour.  The streets flooded.  Remnants of the water and its effects were visible the next day.  This is nothing new, as the monsoon, sporadic in its yearly intensity, is a comfort to much of India and very common occurrence.  It indicates the beginning of a planting season, the availability of mouth-watering mangos, and gives life to the rivers of India.  And yet, despite its predictable inevitability, common sense approaches to deal with the negative consequences – flooding of open sewers, roads turning into impassable waterways, open water breeding of mosquitoes leading to outbreaks of malaria and dengue – are consistently overlooked. 

I can’t help but wonder about the many things that appear common sense to my foreign eyes – even after nearly a few years here, which merit little notice or attention to others.  

To my amazement, annual monsoon preparation entails an army of workers, armed with shovels, sent out to tackle the sewers.  Workers are hired to manually ‘desilt’ the drains and sewers of the country.  These men user their shovels to excavate the trash, sludge, mud and excrement that has been accumulating for the last 9 months.  A ‘desilted’ drain usually has a stinky, black, tarry line of goo abutting the length of the drain piled neatly alongside.  The first rain usually washes half of it back into the drains and the other half back onto the streets.  This is one of the many things I find mind boggling.  Is it still a surprise when the monsoon brings flooding – leading to damage and havoc?