Rain, rain, go away...?

As has been previously mentioned, after a dry, humid and all-round stuffy first 24 hours, my arrival in India saw greeted with some seriously mega rainfall, with dire consequences for all forms of transport.

Northern Karnataka - immediately south of Mumbai - does not usually experience heavy monsoon rainfall as it is largely on top of a plateau by the Western Ghats. On this occasion, however, it bore the brunt of a massive late summer monsoon, wreaking havoc in the region and resulting the closure of Goa's international airport, the suspension of long-distance rail services down the west coast, and the closure of the main highway linking the southern states with Mumbai.

My uncle, taking an overnight coach from Mangalore (in southern Karnataka) to Mumbai to meet me, basically raced the storms - his coach was unable to return to Mangalore as 4 landslides closed the highway just minutes after they had passed them.

The floods from the rains have caused untold damage and several deaths... but represent one of India's annual ironies - without such heavy rain, the suffering in a few months would probably have been a lot worse.

The day I arrived in India, the headlines in the media concerned the "worst drought in Mumbai since 1972" - a summer of failing monsoons had left the lakes that provide the city with water more than 30% below on required water levels as the monsoon season drew to a close. With next-to-no rain falling between November and May, an urban area the magnitude of Greater Mumbai requires all four of its feeder lakes to be overflowing come the close of the monsoons; the massive failure to do so brought fears of a shocking lack of water next summer.

So while the downpours brought suffering to Karnataka, as those same rains headed further north they brought untold relief to Mumbai's 15+ million inhabitants. Some sort of pun involving clouds, silver-lining, etc., can probably be inserted here.