Rains

SOILED RAINS

The monsoon has arrived and there is a mad scramble for finding the meaning of the word. It actually has nothing to do with the rains, it is a word used by employees on a five day week. After enjoying the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) lazing around the house and generally getting in their spouse’s hair they find it a little difficult getting ready to go to work on Mondays. Hence, they have coined the term monsoon meaning ‘Monday comes too soon’!

Coming back to the matter of rains, it unsettles the Water Supply department as they do not have enough settling tanks to take out the mining rejects and soil from the water. However, they readily give out stupid explanations like ‘being sons of the soil, what’s a bit of soil in the water’! One gets a free mud bath during the monsoons and that is considered a very healthy practice. Grin and bear with it. The ladies and the maids are equally unsettled as a lot of soil settles on the floors – this of course, has to do with the men and children not wanting to dirty the ‘WELCOME’ door mats! Washing vehicles is of no point as they do not actually need a mud bath. The drains are choked and the waste water flows out into the open – soil to soil – very environment friendly, these water supply guys!Landslides add to the chaos and so do fallen trees adding soil to the roads making them brown topped! Vehicles go into a skid like a M800 does on a banana peel and two wheelers topple into rivers, streams and flash floods which is a quicker way to have a mud bath or meet your maker – soil!

All this leads to people rushing for clean water and the opportunistic guys at Kingfisher, Bisleri and their ilk make a fast buck. The construction contractors and workers are also in huge demand as everyone starts building their own settling tanks. Water tankers do roaring business pulling out clean water from the soil. The people at Forbes start crying Eureka as soon as the rains begin and tell you to guard your aqua! The vehicle servicing guys sell you on pre-monsoon servicing, anti-rust painting and keeping your bottom, sorry, your vehicle’s bottom safe. The umbrella guys, the raincoat guys (remember sou’wester anyone?), the gumboot guys(these days there is no gum or rubber only plastic) and the plastic sheet guys also have a whale of a time along with the water-proofing guys! The rains are found to be very good for business but not your wallet as it gets ‘soiled’ in the rains!

There is also an upside to rains - greener looking environs, be it the forests, the fields or the gardens & orchards; lakes, ponds and reservoirs fill up assuring a clean summer; fish get a chance to multiply and that allows you round the year supplies; same with the frogs (for those who go for legs) and vermi-compost composts faster! The roads are relatively free of traffic and you can try that controlled skid in your sports car without worry! So get out of the house, get wet and enjoy the rains!

Tongue in Cheek by Kali