Chennai Rains and My Raincoat

It is said Samson derived all his strength from his mane. For that matter, all great superheroes derive their power through something. Samson had his hair and when he cut his locks, he lost his superhuman strength. Spiderman and Superman, though do not exactly derive their strength from the suit they wear, the suits help them in channelizing their energy and give them their identity. The suit definitely helps in a great way for Antman, once he is in his suit he can change his size and shape at will and Irion Man when he dons the half a ton suit, he is a different man. Harry Potter has his magic wand which helps him in wizardry. Why such a preamble? Yours truly has a raincoat which puts me in this elite league. You must be laughing already. I will come to that in a moment.

I wrote in my blog, The day I became a Sorcerer&#8230 that it was Mohan Ram who accused me of stopping whatever meagre rains Chennai received every year. The Northeast monsoon lasts for a total of three days in Chennai unless a storm or a cyclone forms in Bay of Bengal and decides to make landfall in Chennai ignoring its pet destination like Nellore in coastal Andhra or Orissa. On the onset of first rains in Chennai in 2018, I bought a raincoat and rains stopped immediately. It skipped Chennai altogether in 2019. There was a severe warning about a cyclone in November/December last year and not even a drop of rain arrived. So I was getting less skeptical about the raincoat I had. May be that raincoat did really have something.

I am more inclined to believe my magical powers or at least the power of my raincoat now, after seeing what happened last week. The first rains which arrived, it was not severe. Abdul, my colleague did not bring his raincoat and I gave this blessed  (or cursed, depends on the point of view) raincoat to him. Then the warning of cyclone came and so did the rains. It rained in buckets, the lakes were overflowing, and once the slice gates opened, the city (most of it anyway) got flooded and WhatsApp was filled with memes, paper with news stories and TV with non stop coverage.

But then Cyclone did pass without causing catastrophe. All because, after two days, Abdul returned the raincoat and voila the rains stopped and everyone heaved a sigh of relief from Chennai to Cuddalore to Karaikal.

There is a warning of more rains on 2nd December. I should check my theory out.

I think, I can now invoke rain God at will, at least during monsoon. And that should be a welcome news to residents of Chennai.

You can catch my last blog on how it all started here: The day I became a Sorcerer…