I've said it before, and i'm going to have to say it again: rain here is not rain. It's a kind of experience where a deluge of water accosts you from all sides... without fail, i feel like a i'm in the first phase of a carwash.

The wind renders umbrellas and raincoats useless, and the blocked drains turn streets into muddy rivers.

You can either think about what you saw on the sidewalk and how you're walking through the liquified version of that, or you can follow the lead of the street kids dancing naked in the puddles... in an sloshing along, not being hot, enjoying yourself kind of way [Literally dancing naked in puddles would not advisable in india, where I've yet to use the tank tops languishing sadly in my pack].

There is some kind of festival going on. It involves sticks and dancing and eardrum-explodingly loud music. Every evening for nine days, alley are transformed into street parties.

The kids were having a blast in the rain, and everyone else had shifted into that friendly, shared-circumstances kind of camaraderie that we Canadians reserve for gigantic snowstorms.

And i really was getting into the spirit of it all... it was the craziest work commute that i will ever experience in my entire life.

Then a taxi zoomed by and drenched me in streetwater. Fine. Then my foot slipped and I would up calf deep in a muddy pothole. Fine. But then my foot accidentally kicked a plastic bag, and it flipped over and revealed...

a gigantic, sodden, dead rat. Big fat hot-dog-like tail as long as my arm.

Scarred for life. I am. What could i do? I sat through my meeting (which included a 2.5 hour hindi movie to raise AIDS awareness), and then i ran to the store to spend a truly ridiculous amount of money on an imported Snickers bar.

There are some things that only chocolate can cure.

7:09 p.m. - 2003-10-08