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Only a few things are for certain in India: that the price of onions will rise before an election, that an India-Pakistan match will be described as ‘more than cricket’, and that elections will never be held in monsoon. The calendar is ruthlessly clear: Our great democratic extravaganza unfolds in the comfortable shades of spring or winter. By June, when the clouds gather and the first raindrops hit, the ballot boxes are already tucked away. Coincidence? Hardly.
It’s not that the Indian monsoon is apocalyptic. It is not a Katrina, a Harvey or a typhoon with a Viking name. In fact, in most places the rain is oddly well-behaved. It arrives roughly on schedule, cools the earth, restores groundwater and gives farmers reason to exhale. But let it rain for two hours in Gurgaon and suddenly the Millennium City looks like an audition tape for Atlantis. Cars bob like half-hearted gondolas, office towers turn into aquariums, and WhatsApp fills with memes of corporate executives rowing to work.
The problem isn’t that the rain is catastrophic. The problem is that it is revealing.
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Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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Disclaimer
Views expressed above are the author’s own.
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