India: Rain

Pitter patter. The sounds of the monsoon rains falling harder and more frequently as the days pass by. Barefoot children playing soccer that turns into rugby, and the old women finally smile at the rain-soaked hair dangling before our pale faces. Flashes of light freeze the milliseconds of smiles as they flash by all too quickly.

Drip. Drip. The courtyard floods with the welcomed rains, the sounds of laughter, and pairs of dark, toughened feet running around. Swivel. The fan wobbles and rotates in the two-room flat with peach-colored marbled floors. A black winged insect crawls on the floor between the maze of folded-up mattresses and scattered notebooks scribbled with the plans for the week. The blue-lined papers are damp and crinkled.

It's quieter now. It's too dark to see the white leather-bound ball being tossed back and forth. Time to go.

Dogs whimper and bark as they grab each other by the neck. One of the pups suckles at the over-filled teets of a scrawny mother struggling to stay standing. There is a warning in her hardened eyes. "Don't mess with me," they stated while silently begging for help. Underneath the umbrella, I try to avoid muddy puddles and watch as the sewer canals begin to flood. I wonder if they actually flow anywhere, or if they are just for show in attempts to give us some hope that the floods do not rise past our knees this year. My left arm raises and hails a rickshaw. The driver comes up to a screeching halt while splashing the bottom of my black salwar with muddy water.