Heavy Rains, Backwaters and Big Bugs

I have never seen rain like I have seen the past few days; a good old-fashioned thunderstorm like what I grew up with in Wisconsin summers, and have missed every year since I moved to the Bay Area. Thunder, collecting itself in between bursts, lightning tridents connecting sky and earth or jumping cloud to cloud, and endless torrential rains. And when I say torrential, I mean the strongest largest drops of rain in the densest, most massive quantities imagineable. The monsoon rains don't start until June, but it is impossible for me to fathom what a monsoon is if this hasn't already qualified.

It has rained three times during the last week, always beginning around 3:30 or 4 and lasting until about 5 or 6, which is exactly when my singing lessons take place. During two classes, we needed to suspend our singing because it was simply impossible to hear the electronic drone box which marks the starting, 5th, and octave pitch of whatever mode you are singing in. More traditionally, this tonic pitch, or shruti, is played by an instrument like the harmonium or shruti box, but my teacher just plugs it in and lights it up. With volume on full blare, we couldn't hear a thing.

The sound of the wind itself, the massive leaves of the surrounding trees being blown about, the rain hitting the roof, throwing down fruit from the trees which pellet down on the thatched roof of the classroom, joined by the already constant chorus of birds, all completely overpowered our little drone box and our two tiny voices. The rain slackens and intensifies, but never stops until it actually stops. The first time it rained, neither my teacher nor I had an umbrella, so we tried to wait out the rain. She gave up after 30 minutes so that she could get back to her family and cook them all dinner, so was drenched by the time she reached the busstop a few minutes away at the main junction of this small town. I waited almost two hours into nightfall (it is 7 PM now and pitch black outside as I write this), and the rain actually ended in time to let me get to dinner at 7:30 in a relatively dry state.

My teacher, when talking about improvising, says the music is imagining. When it rained the second day during our lessons, she stopped and said it was God imagining. That image and the storms are beautiful, but it is hard not to think of this force bringing the devastation of Katrina and the 2006 tsunami. The thought of worsening climatic conditions is right around the corner of my mind, as I recall an article I read before coming here about the imminent possibility of Bangladesh and too many other regions in this part of the world being completely submerged by rising waters and raging storms.

In other less beautiful yet ominous news, I saw the biggest cockroach I have ever seen in my entire life, and believe me, I saw a number worth noticing during my year in Taiwan. This time, it was not a cute albino gecko startling me when I turned on the lights, but a ghastly, nasty beast perched on the wall right near the toilet (or porcelain hole in the ground that serves as my toilet). I didn't entirely stifle my scream, and Shin, the 67-year old Korean man who just arrived this week, (rounding up the total count of male students at the school to 2), shuffled out of his room in boxers to see if everthing was alright. This was much appreciated, as freaking out to oneself is not nearly as cathartic, as I realized a few days later when I encountered an inappropriately gigantic spider who had set up camp inside the glass where I keep my toothbrush on my desk. Ugh!! Anyway, I directed Shin's attention into the bathroom and towards the cockroach. In a frustratingly nonplussed manner, he noted that perhaps it was time for me to make friends with the animal. Will I ever be that calm? Do I want to ever be that calm?!

Due to language barriers, everyone to whom I described the bug, whether Korean, French or Indian, could only use the word "animal" to guess at what I had seen. It seems no one knows the English word for bug, nor do I know the Korean, French or Malayalam word for it. So, animal then. Seems quite appropriate. After this incident, I fled to the bathroom on the second floor of my house, and used that for a full day. When I decided to brave my bathroom again, the animal was nowhere to be seen. I'm only afraid of stepping on such a thing before I have the chance to turn on the lights. Egad.

In other more news-like news, I decreased my singing class to 1 1/2 hours a day starting this week, and will be increasing yoga to 2 hours a day. My teacher seems to have come to his senses after our first week together, and suddenly became much more professional. We still talk alot, but actually about yoga, not marriage! My hopes for this new schedule are that I will not burst my vocal chords from singing too much, and that I will continue to discuss yoga, its place in Hinduism, and its remarkable similarities as a philosophical and ethical system to Buddhism (or vice versa, as my teacher pointed out the other day), while also being able to actually finish a whole set of yoga postures, and end with a proper meditation.

I continue to eat far too much and too well. I am slowly building up a wardrobe of clothing here, and actually bought a sari today. I really wasn't intending on getting a sari, as I don't feel an urge to wear one. Even though they are worn daily by many married women, and poor women walking barefoot at that, they feel very extravagant to me. I don't wear dresses at home, and saris feel like power dresses. That and the fact that your midriff shows make them a rather unappealing option for me. But I was at the clothing store to buy a few more outfits and wanted to look at the fabrics, which are so unbelievably gorgeous. My eye caught on a bolt of deep red cloth with sections of gleaming white embroidered flowers. The bad man shopkeeper noticed, and quickly pulled the bolt from the shelf and splayed it teasingly across the display counter. I literally couldn't take my eyes off that raw red silk. Mmmmm. I wanted to put it in my mouth, wrap myself in it, roll around on it, and merge with it, all at the same time. It was only $30, and now it is mine. I'm a bit loath to get it cut into a sari, as I really will never ever wear it after leaving India, but....what else would I do with it? Any ideas? If I do cut it into a sari, I plan on wearing it for my 36th birthday, which is right around the corner. Seems fitting. And I will definitely take a picture and post it somewhere.

In a final bit of news, I took an excursion a few hours north this weekend and sailed around on a boat in the Kerala backwaters, which, along with a beach town in Kerala, are the two "must do" things here for tourists. The backwaters were beautiful, though I felt conflicted about the experience in terms of the disruptive and polluting nature of the barges, which were once used solely for crop and commercial transport. I also felt extremely odd about the dynamic that takes place between the foreign tourists on the boats drifting by staring at the "scenery", which just so happens to be people living their lives on the shores of the canals. Conveyer belt tourism. Very disconcerting.

I'll stop there, as it is getting late, and I need to allot an hour to apply nourishing coconut oil to my scalp and then take a cooling shower before bed.

Thinking of you all.