Surviving the Monsoon

Most of India is in the midst of monsoon season. Before this summer, I guess I didn't really know what monsoon meant. I thought it was a massive rainstorm, but at least in Delhi it just means that it rains all day, every day. Sometimes the rain is light. Sometimes it comes down in buckets. Either way, it is constantly raining.

Delhi has actually had a poor monsoon this year. There was about a week of straight rain at the beginning of the season. But the past few weeks had been pretty dry, until this week.

This week I learned what monsoon really meant. On Wednesday, I arrived at my office just as the rain started coming down in buckets. I was dropped off right at the front door, but in the 5 seconds it took me to get out of the car and run to the door, I was drenched.

My favorite part of the monsoon mess is how much people LOVE the rain. Here are some monsoon-related conversations I've had recently:

• Don't you just love this weather? You mean pouring rain and brown skies? No.
• The weather is so nice today, we should make plans for the evening. What are you talking about. It's raining like crazy.
• Isn't the weather so nice today? Um, no. Are we looking out the same window?

But one of my colleagues had a good explanation for this difference in thought. A good monsoon means a good harvest. A good harvest is good for the economy. And everyone wants the economy to do well. So therefore, Indians heart the monsoon. Makes sense.

But I still hate the monsoon. Traffic is absolutely horrible in the rains, if you can imagine anything worse than the usual Delhi traffic. Commute times double. And I'm not sure what they use to build roads here, but it seems to dissolve in the rain, leaving giantic potholes for people to attempt to maneuver around.

In any case, I will learn to deal with the monsoon, just like everyone else, and hope that the rains bring a good harvest and that somehow that good harvest puts more money in my pocket.