Rain

We’ve had four days of heavy rain. It was amazing, I can’t remember how many years it’s been since it has rained like this. And it wasn’t a cyclone or a tropical storm, with their destructive winds, but a “well-marked depression.” Now it seems to be over, and the sun is blazing. But the garden looks green, with the dust washed away; and the water-level in the well has risen. Our rainwater harvesting system, installed late last year, has gotten its first real test.

Of course, there’s no such thing as a free lunch (Ramesh’s favourite American expression), so there were many power outtages and fluctuations. The Electricity Board has been known to turn off the power when rain is heavy, to avoid short-circuiting those silver-painted Rube Goldberg boxes, raw wires waving in the breeze, that stand on so many street corners, and get their feet wet when the streets are flooded.

Two skinny casuarina trees in the garden fell over.

Worse, the inflow to the reservoirs which feed the city has not, apparently, been very great – one or two days’ supply only.

But it’s been lovely.