For the first time in days, weeks, months, there was an orange sky to the east today morning. A beautiful sunrise after ages! Have the rains finally said goodbye for the year? Your guess is as good as mine. We have had an unusually long run of rainy days this year. ‘Kerala receives record rainfall of the century’ cried the newspapers last week. Apparently the weather-people have recorded an all-time high rainfall during Northeast Monsoon this year since 1901, an excess of a whopping 136% (244.4mm rainfall against the average of 103.8mm as of mid-November).
Pre-monsoon period early in the year also saw spectacular rainfall much in excess of the usual. Who was it that said ‘well begun is half done’? Aristotle, if I am not mistaken. Well, in the case of the rains this year it is more like ‘well begun is overdone’. This is the seventh month of rain. Seventh! It made me wonder how life must be for those in Cherrapunji in the state of Meghalaya. If you didn’t know, Cherrapunji has been credited as the wettest place on Earth. Or was, till recently. Now the nearby Mawsynram has snatched the crown.
Moss and snails are everywhere one looks. The cupboards have a musty smell and the clothes a still damp feel. In addition, the incessant noise of rain falling heavily makes it difficult to hear even one’s own thoughts, let alone the television or music unless played loudly. Is it any wonder then that I have the eerie feeling of living in the Ray Bradbury story ‘All Summer in a Day’!
Today was different. The sun shone bright and hot after rising so spectacularly clad in orange. At least it did till noon. A light shower post-lunch sent me scurrying to bring the clothes on the line back inside. But it had been merely a scare tactic on the rain’s part. The sun came back to shine some more. In fact I was able to spend some time walking in the evening sun out on the roof terrace. The blue sky of the day had given way to one loaded with clouds, low lying ones, some white and fluffy, others wispy but in a darker shade. Perhaps it would rain again later tonight. The forecast says there is more rain in store for us this week. No matter, I am glad for the brief respite of this one sunny day in a long time.
© Shail Mohan 2021
Shail's Nest 
As much as we long for rain to break the drought and fill our storage dams, seven months of it in a row sounds like too much of a good thing. Your sunrise looks spectacular, Shail.
Today we had a second sunny day, but the forecast says rain for a week from tomorrow. Too much of a good thing, indeed! 🙂