I woke up twice last night, so heavily it was raining.

With a month delay, winning once again against global warming, the monsoon is back in town. Exotic, wonderful. And discomforting.

When I woke up this morning, late because of the dark sky outside, it was raining inside my bathroom too. The ceiling failed once again.

It happened last year as well, and although I paid for it to be fixed, six months ago, I wasn’t really expecting the ceiling were going to make it through the monsoon. It’s one of the first things I learned here: you must try to get things fixed – because you must – but you also must not expect that they will be – fixed.

A year ago the first sight of a ceiling shower in my bathroom caused me a mix of distress, anger, sense of impotence and a tiny bit of incredulous amusement.

Today I emptied the bathroom, locked the door, and almost seamlessly proceeded to my morning tea routine.

Roads in Delhi become rivers after a fifteen minutes long regular rain. Monsoon showers are just too much for the city poor drainage system.

For days, after the rain you’ll see papers, chairs, tables, computers covered in mud and water emerging from flooded basements, carried in the sun by people who don’t really hope to save anything, but are simply following the rule: you must try to get things fixed – because you must – but you also must not expect that they will be – fixed.

Near to my home. It took them three days to empty the basement.

Drenched paper always breaks my heart

With such an amount of water covering it, walking out of your home is out of question. Well, unless someone you know and trust talks you into a walk in the rain in shorts and slippers, but that is a whole different story (and one whose memory will have the power to disgust you for years to come).

Anyway today was no day for adventures, nor for auto-rickshaw rides. So I called the taxi stand to learn that “Today is very jam day, sorry”.

No taxis. Again, what would have made me angry and restless a few moths ago didn’t really hit me much. I hung out in my living room, enjoying the unusual fresh air that was coming in from the balcony.

When I finally – not too long later – got into a cab,  it wasn’t for a smooth ride. Traffic was blocked. Broken cars would jam the roads.

Broken, yes. Cars, even expensive imported German cars, break here, when it rains. That is a mystery I will never be able to solve, a reality I will never believe.

Slowly, I made it to the office. Past pools of mud and rain in which half naked children were -my goodness- playing. Past goats, and cows and calves (cows always seem to multiply, during the monsoon). Past the stray dogs. Past crowds of people seeking shelter under bus stops. And past all the street people that were, instead, just staying there, under the rain that wasn’t so heavy anymore (water is always a happy thought, in the desert). Getting wet. With their polyester pants. And their polyester bright saaris.

My drive was like a slow-motion tour of the chaos. Dreadful and always a but scary but somewhat wonderful.

It made me remember something I was told about India, way before I moved here: “There’s so much life, there. So much. Most of times, there isn’t much more than that – a lot of life. And it’s beautiful”.

And it is – beautiful. In the only way I have ever experienced in which beautiful has nothing – nothing – to do with pretty.

And then, it was Holi.

Holi is the festival of colors, which of course is way too innocuous as a definition.

Sure, colors, how sweet. To celebrate the arrival of the spring, how cute. Except there is nothing cute, or sweet, about Holi.

Holi is primitive, animal. But purely, supremely, insanely fun.

Holi is wild. It’s a huge street-fight in which colors are the weapons. People throw colored powders and liquids, made of god-knows-what, at each other. Buckets filled with yellow, red, blue, green (often mixed together in a nice brown)  liquids become the shower, of the day. A shower everyone ends up taking way too often.

Better be prepared. You don’t want to be covered in blue and have nothing to fight back with, because nothing more than that would make you feel a loser. You’ll regret, I know I did, not to have invested in that water gun connected to a backpack/tank.

Most people add insanity to Holi by drinking bhang lassi, a milk based drink thickened with fruits and enriched with cannabis. Yes, laves and flowers from female cannabis plant. Which here is sold as a mouth freshener. That makes people high. And Shiva happy (people drink it to honor him).

In Indian families, even grannies drink bhang. And they play holi. Dancing in their perfectly plited saris, high, even old ladies throw colors at each other. Old ladies play, in a restrictive, male centered, judgemental society. Which of course is one of those “in India only”inconsistend and truly wonderful things.

So what happens on holi is you cover youself in oil (colors stain the skin), put on your clean and hopefully disposable clothes, and get out. And a few hours later, you, and all the people around you, look like this:

(Thanks Emilia for the picture)

Which, of course, doesn’t mean it’s over.

This picture has actually been taken quite early in the day. After that there have been baths in a swimming pool in which every swimmer had discarded a bit of color (you don’t want to see that). Mud fights (thank-god-not-me). A few kilometers walk to hop on a rickshaw at the end of a congested road. An expedition to a neighboring state because Delhi is dry on Holi. And more, more, more colors. More dancing. More screaming. More running. More laughing. Did I say more colors?

And then, finally, there has been the longest shower I’ve ever had. After which, thanks to the riddiculous amount of Vaseline that was covering my hair since the morning, I had only a few red and green wisps. Being blond on Holi is no easy business.

Now, a week later, even the last fuchsia stain is gone from my back. And even the green that was contouring my nails has disappeared.

My whole body is back to white. Ready to be stared at for the next twelve months.

It’s funny, isn’t it, the the only day I haven’t caught anyone’s attention has been the one I was going around with my face and hair covered in blue and red color?