For the past couple of years, I have felt that the rains in Bengaluru (I do prefer Bangalore but vottodo, the bunch of clowns in charge the government has decided that’s the name of our shitty city) begin about a month late..and then, after a weak start, suddenly descend from the skies with a vengeance..and the summer monsoon just seems to carry on, with just a little break in October for Navarathri (just when we are all dressing up to visit each others’ homes, it is stuffy and not-comfortable), it just carries on into the winter monsoon!

Yesterday we had gone with our friends to a wedding reception; on the way back, they dropped us home…and found the traffic backed up so much that they couldn’t even get on to the main road. So they came back to our place at 10 pm we sat and chatted and played “28” ( a card game ) and several hilarious rounds of Boggle (KM: “You mean I can’t write ‘juize’? That’s the way we say it after all!”) and it was past 12.30 am when, from our balcony, we felt that the traffic had abated enough for them to make an attempt to go home….and this is an arterial road that we live on…what must be the fate of other, smaller roads?

Lake beds are dried out to build houses on, the ground is covered in concrete, storm drains are not cleaned properly…and the average Bengalurean pays the price, every time it rains hard.

Tomorrow is the Ganesha festival (today is the Gowri festival; first the mother, Parvathi, is venearated, and then the son, Ganesha) and the markets are probably washed out and trade must be miserable. (I went yesterday and did my shopping, enjoying every bit of the festive atmosphere….but I have already taken the same pics last year, so didn’t take my camera at all!) Feel very bad for those whose living keeps them outdoors…