rains

Rains Lash – Episode II

This entry was posted in nature on by (updated 5178 days ago)

Rains lashed back with a vengeance, on Delhi.. yet again. Monsoons have arrived and as usual, this was followed by traffic snarls, water clogging and vehicle stalling everywhere. Somehow Delhi never seems to learn but I guess some things are never meant to change anyway. I was *REALLY* pissed this morning as I wanted to drive to office. Had some work to attend to on the way. With the heavens pouring their hearts out the way they were, I wasn’t allowed to take the car as I don’t have much experience in “monsoon driving” yet. There’s always gotta be a first step, but that was not enuff of a reason for my dad to let me take the car. “The brakes also seem to be having some problem and I don’t think you should be taking such risks”. Humph was all i could do. Eventually had to resort to going by the office bus. Gosh!! Such a waste of time and it also involved getting wet. (am not really fond of getting wet, am no rain dance person).
So there I stood infront of the gurdwara waiting for my bus, getting wet and wetter with each passing moment, clutching on to my pink (yes, that *is* the colour), transparent, Japanese umbrella as if it’s my boyfriend’s cosy hand (wry smile). Passing vehicles inevitably splashed me with more muck. Finally the bus came and thankfully the seats were not *as* wet as I had expected them to be. The rain had almost stopped by then.
I decided that I had had enough of a bad mood and decided to spend the journey (it sure is a long one from Delhi to Gurgaon) observing how monsoons change Delhi. Here are a coupla things I noted.
–Lush greenery was visible everywhere..everything was cleaned up and bright even though the same place would have earlier looked like a patch of wild weeds growing -unchecked.
–Birds dotted the electric wires! They shouldn’t have been doing that in this weather.. and surprisingly they were all sitting with regular equidistant intervals.. made me wonder about their sense of space and order :-).
–Monkeys (yes they are as free as us to inhabit Delhi) were enjoying the monsoon too. I spotted one looking heavenward and slapping his forehead. That one might have been imitating me had he seen me earlier :-P.
–Squirrels were darting about trees probably checking if their stocks were soaked or preserved.
–Waves and ripples forming in the water bodies that had appeared everywhere.
–There were no boundaries to the roads! All footpaths and dividers were submerged in water in many areas. One had to practically rely on instinct to drive or rather wade through the water.

Finally I reached *office*.. what an anticlimactic destination for such a weather!

Let the rain come down and wash away my tears
Let it fill my soul and drown my fears
Let it shatter the walls for a new sun

A new day has come-Celine Dion, A New Day Has Come
.. and a cathartic feeling has come over me…


Rains Lash!

This entry was posted in gurgaon nature work on by (updated 3370 days ago)

One of the most interesting things happened last friday, something which could actually result in a lot of business loss for the company in which I happen to be employed. There was a complete power outage in one of the plots that we operate from. The generators and power cables etc are kept in the basement of this plot. The rains on thursday night had lashed out pretty strongly and Haryana being the way it is, with no proper drainage system in place, the water flooded our basement. It was 3 feet high with the major equipment completely soaked in water, resulting in emergency shutting off of the power supply. The UPS could also not last for long.

When I reached the office, most of the ppl were standing outside as nothing was working – no PC’s, no AC, no lighting. Everyone wondered for some time abt what to do next (of course the ppl handling the crisis were already at it). It was obvious that the power would not come back so soon and when it does it would take some time to stabilise things. The power was there in other plots but ppl cdn’t really work even there, since the central hub of the company was down. All unix servers, mail servers, proxy server were down, cutting us off from the entire world. It’s such a handicap in this age of electronic means!!
Anyhow strategies for making the best of the opportunity started pouring in. I was all for a Jaipur trip (provided we started on time) or a guitar session (have kept my guitar in office). Someone wanted to watch American Chai at DT Cinemas, Gurgaon. Have already seen that movie in a film festival last year. It’s another one of those where a typical NRI of Indian descent is confused about his “culture” and eventually realises sooner or later that it’s very much a part of him. Ultimately we watched Matrix Reloadedat PVR Gurgaon. The hall is superb, the movie is not. Various upcoming malls at Gurgaon add to the modernistic sheen of that place.
So we had a blast and came back to office, only to be told that the power outage is here to stay for some time. These guys were lucky all this happened on a Friday, with a weekend buffer otherwise imagine the number of wasted manhours!! I must have heard the term BCP (Business Continuity Process) umpteen no. of times that day! Lot of ppl went back home and attended to things they never get the time for on weekdays (that includes sleeping :-P).
In all, such things though in rarity, should happen .. it’s a good team building exercise as we all could make out :-).


My turn finally!

This entry was posted in personal on by (updated 2583 days ago)

Indians sure are pretty emotional and vocal about rains. Right from all news channels on TV, all radio channels and most of the blogs that I usually read, that seems to be *the* current thing to be discussed. The monsoon winds have been moving upwards from south, so finally it’s my turn to celebrate the oncome of pre-monsoon showers in the capital :-).
Yesterday, Delhi finally got its share of this years monsoon. It got the temperature down by about 6 degrees. News channels had special reports on the “occasion”. Radio channels had all RJ’s going on and on about the rain and the weather change (thanks RJ’s but we didn’t really need those inputs to realise that it’s cooler now). The songs were all directed towards rain and monsoon and what it does to Adam n Eve ;-). Somehow we are programmed to be ultra romantic when the gods thunder from above.
So much going on, but ironically I was sitting at home with a fever :-(. Just the previous day only, I happened to read Anvita’s blog (post dated 16th June) which talked about her getting an allergic reaction. At that time I thanked my stars that I didn’t have an allergic reaction coming on, which ultimately results in the whole cough, cold, fever cycle for me. I should have known, I spoke too soon. Before I knew it I had caught the virus (literally, through Anivta’s blog and otherwise 🙂 )