During the second week of November I remarked to a group of visitors from California, that Tiruvannamalai had had an insignificant amount of rainfall in 2008. Well towards the end of November, a couple of days after the group had left, the heavens opened and a gale blew into the Southeast coast of India. Chennai got the brunt of it – but at Tiruvannamalai we also had to bear huge winds and rains that went on and on – day after day. I (and lots of others) lost electricity power for days – and the weather was so unbelievably bad that nobody was on the streets or could come and repair the lines. Residents just hid in their homes. My doggies eyes glazed over in bewilderment – what was happening? Poor things. Outside it seemed liked everything was melting into one great muddy glob.
To give you an idea of the amount of rain we have received in such a short time, I am quoting below part of a posting made on the renovation of the local Simha Tank.
“The Simha Tank is one of my favourite spots around the Hill, as I very much like the iconic statue of the Lion standing sentinel at the front of the Tank. As previously mentioned the tank is being desilted and deepened. It probably will be difficult to believe but over the last few rainy seasons the water level of the tank actually overflows onto Chengam Road, and makes the spot look like a negative edge pool (i.e. infinity swimming pool).”
I took the below photos this afternoon which show the Tank filling up -- still a ways to go before we get to negative edge pool (i.e. infinity swimming pool) . . .
. . . but if you notice at the back of the this photograph the continuous stream of water pouring down from the slopes of Arunachala . . .
and in closer detail . . .
Maybe our negative edge pool (i.e. infinity swimming pool) is not so far away at all!
