The monsoons are here with a swoosh, bang and bucket-loads of water. And we were caught napping...with our eyes wide open. We had known all along that there was stuff that needed to be done before the monsoons - put away our cartons full of dry leaves, clear the drains, make a new bed with the amrit mitti, transplant the papaya plants, make new saplings of veggies we wanted to grow, clear the balcony of all the cardboard and other stuff that would get soggy and wet.....am sure I can think of a lot many other things, once I get down to it. But as always, our laziness and a convenient excuse of being occupied with family, made sure that we did none of these, inspite of regularly talking about it. And last week, as we sat down to enjoy the opening match of the FIFA world cup, the heavens opened up too. Our artificial indoor lights were put out so we could appreciate the live outdoor light(n)ing. The sound of the vuvuzelas was replaced by the clapping of the thunder-clouds. Strong winds brought cool weather along and then the downpour (more of all-sides-pour) began, literally filling our home with water - balcony by balcony. By the time we had finished celebrating the onset of the monsoons, we had 3 small swimming pools in each of our balconies, slowly beginning to overflow and encroach into our living and bed rooms. That was the end of our partying - now began the painful cleaning up - first declogging the drains, drainign the balconies, then the rooms - mop, squeeze, mop, squeeze, wipe....three times over!
The next morning was a typical 'after-the-storm' sight - wet cardboards soggily lying about, rubbish scattered about, mud oozing from the bottoms of our pots and smeared about the floor.....and this was just our balconies. With a lot of trepidation and dilly-dallying, we made our way to our terrace, holding our breaths for the sight we might be in store for....but were pleasantly surprised about the extent of damage or the lack of it - sure there were coconut shells all askew, a carton full of leaves blown away and upturned onto one of the beds, some plants almost horizontal while there were other plants which seemed happy to receive a new leash of life, a lot of new sprouts, our watermelon creeper beginning to bear 3 tiny fruits seemed suddenly to have grown by leaps overnight, our
gawar plants bearing ready-to-pluck
gawars, the cucumber plant is suddenly full of tiny yellow flowers, most of all our beds hadn't really got disturbed by the storm and not much mud/biomass seemed to have been carried away by the wind/ rains. We heaved a huge sigh of relief and set about putting some of the things back where they belonged. Shirish's bro had had a valuable suggestion to give after the last big pre-monsoon thunderstorm which he happened to witness - "why not put
boras/ gunny sacks around the coconut shell boundaries of the beds to keep them in place" - we now humbly set about doing the same - it really didn't take much time to do this for all our beds, if only we had done this when he had told us the last time around. But never mind, all in good time....guess there's only so much one can change about one's nature - we 'corporate-mba-types' work only under pressure, deadlines and KITA (kick-in-the-ass for the uninitiated) ;-)
The next morning was a typical 'after-the-storm' sight - wet cardboards soggily lying about, rubbish scattered about, mud oozing from the bottoms of our pots and smeared about the floor.....and this was just our balconies. With a lot of trepidation and dilly-dallying, we made our way to our terrace, holding our breaths for the sight we might be in store for....but were pleasantly surprised about the extent of damage or the lack of it - sure there were coconut shells all askew, a carton full of leaves blown away and upturned onto one of the beds, some plants almost horizontal while there were other plants which seemed happy to receive a new leash of life, a lot of new sprouts, our watermelon creeper beginning to bear 3 tiny fruits seemed suddenly to have grown by leaps overnight, our gawar plants bearing ready-to-pluck gawars, the cucumber plant is suddenly full of tiny yellow flowers, most of all our beds hadn't really got disturbed by the storm and not much mud/biomass seemed to have been carried away by the wind/ rains. We heaved a huge sigh of relief and set about putting some of the things back where they belonged. Shirish's bro had had a valuable suggestion to give after the last big pre-monsoon thunderstorm which he happened to witness - "why not put boras/ gunny sacks around the coconut shell boundaries of the beds to keep them in place" - we now humbly set about doing the same - it really didn't take much time to do this for all our beds, if only we had done this when he had told us the last time around. But never mind, all in good time....guess there's only so much one can change about one's nature - we 'corporate-mba-types' work only under pressure, deadlines and KITA (kick-in-the-ass for the uninitiated) ;-)
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