Gradually our attention turned to look out the windows.
Ensconced in our air-conditioned apartment, fortified against the blazing heat,
we notice that clouds had gathered. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and now,
stepping out, looking toward some of the higher buildings around us, we see a
line of something. Rain? No, dust.
The wind picks up, whipping trees and plants back and forth
while the air fills with a fine grit. At the time, stepping out, you feel it; after the
wind has died, you see it. Everywhere. It’s on our patio tables and chairs and
in our screened-in kitchen, where anything laying about receives a coat of
fine dust. Following the initial wind and dust comes the rain, large drops that
turn the dust-coated table and chairs into little mud puddles. The rain falls
fast and hard, and the earth never seems ready or able to receive it. Rain
seems foreign to this land of hard soil and dust. (Our landlady’s perfectly manicured,
putting-green lawn an exception). But outside of our compound, large puddles—if
that’s the best word to describe these large collections of water—gather here
and there haphazardly for lack of a drainage scheme. I happily consider that we’ll
be gone from here by the time that the monsoon arrives. I now understand why
the city was still fighting cases of malaria and dengue fever when we arrived
last fall.
Houses don’t have rain gutters, so we see the cascades of
water pouring off the eves and roofs unabated. I’m surprised that houses and
buildings don’t have some type of collection devices for rainwater, since water
is a precious commodity, certainly in short supply as the incredibly hot summer
days and nights push the thermometer higher and higher, parching the landscape and its inhabitants.
After the rain ceases, the sky clears, and a cool, dry
breeze comes in, much like the aftermath of a sultry storm passing through
Iowa. We sit outdoors and soak in the humane weather. It won’t last, but we
enjoy it while we can. We thought we’d see this rainy, sultry weather pattern in Kerala, with
its tropical climate bordering the Arabian Sea, but now we find it coming to
Jaipur, in fits and starts. Weather, when following its normal course of
hot and sunny, is not a conversation starter here (unlike Iowa). Perhaps
it will become so. With changing weather, from hot, to hot and muggy, to thunder
showers, to respite, we’re beginning to feel more and more in our element. How
strange.
