I wish the sun would come back! And small wonder they worshipped Him in Egypt, Greece and Mesopotamia and killed for Him in South America, what with sacrificing virgins yada yada.- I keep wondering what it would take to get rid of all that drippy weather - it really gets to me this time. Yes, it is that time of the year when you wish you were anywhere else but damp, sticky, moldy-smelling Sri Lanka- officially monsoon time- or to use less exotic terminology "gloomy weather predicted in Colombo"
My cats are frozen into catatonic lumps the whole of this week- you can see them lurking like watchful gargoyles, on sideboards, in the ceiling ornaments, on cupboards, too cold to shake a limb but occasionally blinking balefully at the podgy geckos they are too lazy to catch. The half Persian has swollen to twice her size because she is cold and her bristles are sticking out, and taken to answering the calls of nature indoors, ie, in the kitchen sink.
And the Ally living room: permanently damp and dotted with empty plastic Cargill ice cream tubs strategically positioned to catch stubborn leaks. Friends are compelled to fend off the damp purring advances of half-grown cats who are trying to poach body heat from them, and had to sit across from me on the couch and make themselves heard through the gentle tympany of heavy tropical droplets of water landing on plastic. To the optimistic feng shui enthusiast, this may have its charm but I personally hate the whole idea. Leave aside the limp underwear and tea cloths with things growing on them, rugs so damp that you have to actually fight them to get your shoes back, reeking feline foot prints patterning across the tiles in livid muddy shades- there is the smell: take old army boots , a second hand chicken coop , manky gym towels, a lot of rotting wood and a generous dollop of pulsating tropical lichen (and this mind you is after the household dogs have been banned and cruelly locked out to fend for themselves!)- and you come somewhere close to this, keeping in mind that its not very strong, just a faint whiff, since we have got used to it anyway and if it were stronger we would have to root it out some how: no the damp atmosphere does not smother – it just hangs about sheepishly.
But the smell does get to me – so once I land at home in the evenings I need to light two Ninja coils and 3 Dhoop sticks before I can even begin to think straight. –that's after the trip home since I need a little time to "unwind" and recap the journey home-
and did I forget to tell you how I actually got home, those rainy evenings? Well, I couldn't use the moped because my spectacles get foggy in the rain and don't have wipers- so I have to travel in bus like all the other normal middle-class peeps, which means squeezing in with about 85 other damp wheezy people who have just folded their dripping umbrellas and found a spot to stand in that's not half an inch underwater on the bus. Then we spend 45 minutes in the compulsory company of all kinds of droplet infections produced by the copious hacking and sneezing and occasional snorts from people who forgot their kerchiefs and are using their sleeves instead (or even perhaps your shawle if you doze off a minute-) …in a hurtling petri dish sealed from the outside because everyone thinks its a good idea to close the bus windows in case they get dew on them-
Having survived that, theres the lovely tropical trek, home depending on how far you live from the bus halt.
Wonderful Serendipity! Ten to fifteen minutes trudging cheerfully up those rustic, winding little side tracks that lead to home, if you think about it carefully: these puddles are SCARY. Never mind the typhoid and gonorrhea that must lurk in them I personally have a horrible phobia ( due to watching too many horror flicks like Jaws , the Deep and Lake Placid) that if I put my foot in the wrong puddle I may not actually get it back!
And here at last is a regional problem that we cannot blame on the GOSL, LTTE, globalization or the IMF! So there's no point ranting about it on Kottu – unless Waruna* gets His own blog running and allows us to post comments and suggestions to him. And if He does and if we are real nice and grovel enough, maybe we should ask for lots of rain in just those "catchment areas" and not necessarily in Town Hall, Airport road and our local school backyards.. ..or maybe we should consider praying to the Sun-god, instead.
Anything to not have to drape your underwear across a kettle to get it dry, which I have had to do in some hotels-
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*Balinese deity of Rain, Oceans (and thus tsunamis) and other water related issues..
The author lives in damp Hanwella but half-heartedly considers immigrating to a sunnier place, once a year around this time.
this article from years back was adapted to suit 2024
