Here comes the rain again....

I never thought that there would come a day, when I would actually wish for the rain to stop! I have always loved rain. I still do actually. But too much of something is good for nothing. I am getting bored of the dark, gray skies and am longing for some sunshine.

I remember a time, when all of us used to sit and wait for the rain. When I was in school, each time the sky became dark and cloudy, we used to feel excited! Rain was on its way! That meant a definite drop in the temperature and a possible holiday! (yay! every school kid's dream! an unexpected holiday! whose value is enhanced if that particular day had a test for which you had not prepared :P) But very often, we would be disappointed. Rain would come, but only in light drizzles. Not enough to get us a holiday at school (*sigh*).

We had learnt in geography that the south eastern coast of India depends on the North-East monsoons for rain. It depends on cyclones in particular. The south-west monsoon which brings plenty of showers for the west coast is useless to the east because the high hills of the Western Ghats stop the rain-bearing clouds. So Tamil Nadu remains dry till around October, beyond which we get rain from depressions in the Bay of Bengal (if we are lucky that is!). So you can imagine the joy on seeing the first rain clouds here!

Any form of rain was welcome. In fact, me and my friends used to avoid singing rhymes like "rain rain go away", or songs like "who's gonna stop the rain"! Now it is amazing how all of us feel like singing "rain rain go away" in chorus.

About two months ago, when I was in Singapore, my parents had sent me a mail saying that it had started raining in the region. There was a depression in the Bay. I was happy for the state. It needed rain. Then a few weeks later, my parents tell me that the city was flooding! My mom's office is quite close to our house, and she was having difficulties getting to work on her scooter! Imgaine the rest of the city! I just could not believe it! I refused to believe that my city was flooded so badly!

Then my friend sends me a message about the floods which was even more shocking. This friend of mine lives in an independent house. She lives on the first floor of the building and the ground floor had been rented out to another family. One day, while I was chatting with her, she tells me that the tentants have moved into their house because water had entered the ground floor! I have been to her house several times and I could imagine how high the water level would have been for the ground floor of the building to be affected by floods! Now I finally started believing that it was actually pouring cats and dogs in my city and after God only knows how long, the city was flooded.

I thought that the rain would not last too long. Soon everything would be fine. I thought that by the time I went back home, the sun would shine again. That was more than two months back. And unfortunately, I had thought wrong.

Depression after depression struck the state. Most of the dams were full. The dry river beds had water running in full force. Reports of nasty weather continued to stream in from my parents and my friend. I still didn't believe that the rain would last till I returned back home.

Now I am home. And the sixth depression has hit the state (hey! not because I'm back here! Wipe that smirk off your face!) Since I came back, I have seen only a few days of sunshine. Most of the time, it has been cloudy with the threat of downpours. This horrifyingly amazing. What started more than two months ago is still continues...........