Saigon to Superior: Monsoon Morning

Hindu Ruins, Orcha, India

Awoke this morning to the pounding sound of the monsoon rains, which made their belated and annual entrance last night on the tail of our landing plane. Prior to our shared arrival in New Delhi, the city had been a sweltering 118 degrees. However, as I and eleven other Chicago teachers stepped foot out of our air conditioned rooms into our first Indian day, we were greeted by a "comfortable" 95 degree morning.

Eager to explore a little piece of the country we would be touring on scholarships for the next six weeks, a few of us decided to go for a walk to check out a park recommended by our professor. The rains, having fallen for barely five hours at this point, had already turned many of the streets and yards into rivers and lakes. The drops fell straight down, in huge yet gentle sheets, turning on and off at random with no particular way to predict what seemed like Mother Nature’s playful flicking of a switch.

The streets in the Golf Links neighborhood of New Delhi look a bit like England's; well paved and well marked, with painted warnings on the curb that advised these American pedestrians to “look right” before stepping onto the crosswalk. Above the pavement was a different world, as Indians drive just about anything with an engine and wheels, veering, gunning, and beeping like the mad drivers I've witnessed in Central America or Rome.

Exiting zipping chaos, we slipped through a gateway into the park and entered a landscape of gnarled trees and green grass. We followed a winding pathway past iron benches and granite monuments. If it weren’t for the streams and pools that had just submerged half the grounds, I'd have taken it all in from one of the seats fast disappearing beneath the rising rains.

The birds were in jubilant hysterics, sparrows frolicking in fresh puddles, blue-black crows strutting across low branches while flapping wet wings, flocks of green parrots calmly claiming large random trees, and hawks circling in the sky high above.

All the while, spring peeper frogs kicked in a chorus that seemed to thicken the humid air. Couples strolled down paved pathways on leisurely walks, while teenagers sat in a circle on a slab of raised concrete and passed around a joint. It was in many ways like a park back in the U.S. – in, say, a Louisiana flood.

We then topped a crest on our water-logged path. Instead of an expected fountain or gazebo, there stood a mosque--or rather the ruins of one. It was 500 years old. Fifty feet high, raised Arabic script covered the length of its red sandstone walls. As we moved closer, remnants of midnight blue-colored tiles were revealed in the curves of its worn doorways. Beyond it stood a tomb that was even bigger. And beyond that, munching calmly on a patch of tall grass, strolled a sacred cow.

07/05/03