Monsoon Time

Monsoon. Boom. RAH! goes the thunder. Dark in the night. Sounding its arrival. Cracking the skies open, revealing an earthquake from above. I am here, it seems to scream to the entire continent. Water every where. Falling, rising, flowing. Relentless. Bashing down from so high above the land it tries to soak too deep into. It hits the tiled roofs, it triiickles through the holes and then it pours. The ceilings seem to rain. Pipes overflow into waterfalls, and waterfalls fall flushing down the side of houses – outside and in. Trees creak. Bang! Horizontal on roads, cement hugging escaping roots. As the rain eases the water rises. The silence of the skies is replaced by chaos below. Already there are rivers filled of people where rickshaws drivers still try to run while their full carriages appear like boats, bobbing awkwardly through the surge of water. Wheels and Water both trying desperately to keep moving. The wheeling wooden wheels pulled by determined skinny men, sweat soaked, Water Washed; determined to take advantage of the new business opportunity as water laps over the exhausts of stubborn motorbikes and drowns escaping taxi's. Chug! As they splutter to a stop, wheeled to higher ground and then abandoned. A bicycle chained to a metal post by a rusting bicycle chain rises as if by magic.

Emergency forces are called: Rubbish collectors. Thin skinny sticks, poking and pulling: retrieving refuse which is still thrown without foresight. A whirlpool whizzes around and around. Swirling and pulling. A plastic bottle bobs in circles marking the whirling center. Pedestrians try to wade around it as more are created: man holes revealed to try to help the water find its real river and leave the roads to be. Splash Wwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaa Splash as our legs move through this new liquid pressure. Streets crammed with moving people trying to walk when they could be swimming. Flip flops floating from feet. Plastic bags tripping and sticking. Sediment marking and abandoned needles floating.

Thrash! As a straw brush breaks the surface of the river road, followed by screaming children, chasing the swimming river rat which paddles next to wading legs. Splaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash sings another stream released from a peeing man. Urinating in the public urinals – the street river. Meanwhile public water fountains continue to pump. A man digs around in a new concrete mote. He has found a colony of flat black worms, winging their way expertly around through the water. Shops are evacuated from within – goods placed higher, and customers sitting crossed legged in cafes.

Water rushes everywhere, relentlessly swallowing slums and sinking plastic houses as new ones are hastily constructed – a paddling pool above your flooded bed. Children yawn in class as they cannot sleep laying in the rain. Pavement 'houses' crumble, the train station bursts with seasonal-new arrivals as its permanent residents try to mark their territory. Mobile clinics are rendered immobile as epidemics are given free reign.

Government officials speak of 2010 as the 'dry' monsoon – when the water will finally be allowed to flow underneath the concrete rivers.