What I love about the monsoons….
The monsoon always brings back a flood of memories of monsoons past. And so it was this time as well, bringing to mind the things one loved about this season in Chennai:
• Going to sleep with the sound of the wind and rain soothing you
• Feeling the spray of heavy rain in your face as you stand in the doorway and watch it come down
• Curling up in bed with a good book and a glass of hot chocolate on Sunday afternoons
• Hot tea and samosas at tea time on a rainy day
• Watching the rain dance on top of the parapet wall before disappearing in spray
• Cycling in the rain
• Rain holidays
• Playing a game of ‘holly golly’ in the rain
• Roiling cloudscapes
And what one didn’t:
• Millions of litres of water escaping into the sea
• People dying due to wall collapses, drowning in flood waters or being electrocuted
• Potholed roads with the deeper holes hidden by the water
• Over flowing sewage drains
• Road surfaces that disappear every rainy season
• The smell of clothes that haven’t dried properly
• Sticky wet bodies crammed into a bus with its shades down against the rain so you can barely breathe
• Getting wet on the way to school or college, then sitting around feeling miserable till your clothes dried out
• People rendered homeless by the floods
What about you? What do you love about this season? or don’t? Let us know!
Interesting blogs.. I’ve just started reading chennai metblog.
This one is a good one… looks like we have something or the other happening always which brings back cherished moments and sad ones, ofcourse!
You might also want to include the smell of ‘vengaaya pakoda’ when we pass a tea kadai, especially with the mann vasanai..
the feel of chill water, passing through the slipper, shoes, socks on the first step to cross a water-logged spot…
raise in heart-beat when you slip over a ‘vazhu vazhu’ surface and a ‘feel-good phew’ when u balanced yourself…
last but not the least, curse the rains when we polish the half dried shoes the next day morning :)
– love the smell of the first drops touching the warm earth
– love evening feeling all day long
But i hate the mosquitoes that come after
one can travel in the pallavan bus without the overcrowding and the horrible sweating :)
The mosquito menace cannot be combated with traditional methods such as spraying etc.
Modern forms of GENETIC ENGINEERING should be used to tackle this menace. Scientists must be pressed into service for this.
Does this, or any other, government care for the health care of the citizens?
gurunathan – ‘vengaaya pakoda’ hmmm. The perfect food on a rainy day.
Hai Mr.Parthasarathy,
It is quite fascinating what u have said there…do u have any suggestions as to what the scientists should do? Please don´t take this as offence….only i am curious to know about ur ideas about what scientists can do to tackle mosquito problem!
Of lately only i came across researches where they were trying to find out the various flavours/odors that mosquitos are attracted to or repelled by…. if anything could be made of …… a list of people who are genetically prone to be bitten by mosquitos and may some new brands of mosquito repellents…..and of course i think the researches recommended that one better wash their socks everyday!
So if we can know about the people who can attract the mosquitos then we can check for any diseases that they might carry and kind of quarantine them….sounds like a science fiction haahhh..
As for as controlling mosquitoes we need to work hard on keeping our environment under vigillence by preventive measures….which were i think, were listed by the civil authorities when chicunguniya broke…
To the blog itself….along with all the things listed above… i also love the flooding that use to happen in the river every monsoon….it was quite adventurous and exciting to the cross the overflooded river to my school(there was no elevated bridge at this river at that time and no there is no river at all….only some brackish water standing, which during heavy rains floods again….)
Also when i was in my high school i always enjoyed walking in the rain with my friends completely drenched…when the season starts we use to pack all our books in plastic bags into the school bag…so imagine a bunch of girls walking in the rain without any concern much to the horror of all…esp. the guys from the boys school next to us…it was fun!
Ela,
Genetic engineering is not to do with smells and flavours – that might only help kill a few female mosquitoes.
But jokes apart, genetic engineering can control malaria causing vectors, besides causing sterilisation of mosquitoes and a decrease in its numbers.
How many scientists are working on genetic engineering to control the mosquito menace? The government does not fancy doling out money to research or in fact, any scientific program.
Guys!
You forgot to mention holiday declared due to flooding. I was never more interested in the weather reports, than during a school day. Especially, when you had something due and you needed just one more day to complete, these rains used to come in handy. We also used to take our bicycles in the rain and that was a lot of fun too.
But now I also reliase that flooding caused a lot of misery to the homeless and the less fortunate among us.
WHAT ABOUT POWER FAILURE?????