Monsoon

This blog was supposed posted on July 27th. It's old news now.

A typical Indian experience….or why I love this country.

Monday night in Delhi and decided to go for a casual South Indian dinner within walking distance of the hotel. As we were walking out of the hotel, the concierge recommended that we take an umbrella cause the “rains are coming”. It started as a sprinkle and by the time we got to the restaurant we were officially drenched. We had a nice dinner and started chatting with a sweet Indian family sitting next to us. They were so excited about the rains finally reaching Delhi. They offered us to try their food as college age girl and the mother shared their best shopping tips. We said our farewells and Bruce and I started our odyssey home.

It had rained HARD the whole time we were in the restaurant and the rain was still coming down. The roads were flooded. Picture the most rains you can imagine. We were stuck! For about 40 minutes we tried to figure out how to cross the street, find an auto, or build boat. We were now more than drenched. Picture fell in a pool with all your clothes on kind of soaking wet. I jokingly said….we need our little Indian family to come and take us home, and just then out of nowhere a car slowed down which I thought was a taxi… the window rolled down and there they were… our family, true Monsoon Angels!! The six of us jammed into their tiny car and we started the journey to our hotel amidst lots of laughter and thank yous. Once we reached the hotel, we couldn’t get out of the car because the water was up to the car door (“knee deep”). “Papa” finally was able to back up into the driveway so we could get out without flooding his car. So now, we were standing outside (with the hotel umbrella) trying to figure out how to cross the lake to get into the hotel when a hotel SVR (the only thing that could make it thru) pulled up and drove us the 20 remaining feet into the hotel.

It was such an adventure! The rain and flooding were unbelievable…but the beautiful, kind friendship shown by the family was totally expected…it’s the Indian way!

The news just reported “the entire city collapsed due to unrelenting rain”. As I sit, dry, safe and sound in the hotel watching TV, my thoughts and prayers are with the hundreds of thousands of Delhites who are living on the street or in tent cities. God bless them.