Day XV in Bhubaneswar - India trip 2017

It's not apple, rather a Mango a day keeps doctors away. The King of fruits, a great source of Vitamin A and C is now in its peak season and plentiful. It is the Mango man's (AAM AADMI's) favorite fruit.  

The Indian Mangoes are the King of the King of fruits - its taste and texture the sweetest of the sweetest. The Indian varieties of Mangoes beat their Caribbean and Mexican counterparts we get in US by miles.

Best part of the Odia diet is its veritable mix of Rice, vegetables, fish, DALI (Dal or lentil) washed down by the soft, sweet, succulent Mangoes. The negative part - we eat too much carb in form of rice and potatoes, which is redundant in tropical climate and cause of sugar and triglycerides in blood.

Today is SNANA PURNIMA (The Full moon day of shower), marking the auspicious occssion of Lord Jagannath's shower ceremony. It comes on the full moon day of the month of JYESTHA, the summer month of the Hindu Lunar Calendar. 

Like a normal human being our Lord takes a shower on this day of SNANA PURNIMA (the full moon day for bath) and falls sick, suffering from fever on following days until the day of RATH YATRA (Car Festival) when he travels to his MAUSI's (sister of his mom) house a few miles away sitting on a chariot named as named NANDIGHOSA. After the ceremony, he gives DARSHAN (peek) to His devotees in GAJA BESHA (the form of Lord Ganesha).

This day, true to its tradition, was accompanied by stifling heat and humidity. The weathermen had predicted rain showers a week ago to arrive in next couple of days. The prediction stood the same for a week - prospective showers in next couple of days due to cyclonic  low pressure over Bay of Bengal which should pull in the monsoon moisture to quench the thirst of the parched mainland. 

Years back the renowned cartoonist R K Laxan sketched a guy standing alone at a Bus stop, getting drenched in rain whereas the rest are holding umbrellas. The hapless guy was seen telling the inquisitive onlookers - "Yes, I work for the weather channel. How did you know" ? The moral of this caricature - those who have common sense came out with umbrellas. Only the weatherman didn't.

The promised showers which remained long elusive finally came down early this afternoon. First it was all fart, no shit. Followed by sound of rumbles and wind, but no rain for a while, until the cloud constipation ended as the heaven gates opened up pouring out rain. A 30 minute shower led to an outage of 3 hours of power, @ 1 hour of power cut for every 10 minutes of rain in the Smart City.

The other day when we went out after fresh morning rains. 3 guys started oggling at us, rather at Tanujaa like they hadn't seen a woman before. Distracted, one of them fell on a muddy poodle covering a pothole, while the other two got busy extricating their buddy from the mess. We had a hearty laugh at the fallen hero's expense. Rain definitely brings in its share of fun and joy. More later....