Another weekend spent at Chennai. Inspite of being early September, the sun burns down like
it would in peak summer. It is supposed to be monsoon time in Chennai, but there is no sign of rains.
I call home on Saturday and am told that it is raining cats and dogs in Kerala, which is not at all surprising, given that it is monsoon season there round the year. They ask if we are getting any rains in Chennai. Not a drop for many weeks now.
Sunday also turns out to be a hot day. Since the car has accumulated quite some dust over the past many weeks (inspite of my keeping it covered), I think it would be a good idea to give it a good wash. A good chance to burn some calories too.
Washing done, I decide to follow it up with a wax job, since the last waxing was done by me
more than 2 months ago. After a wax and good rub, she is shining like a new car just out of
the showroom. More so, because the black colour just shines when waxed.
Happy with the result of a couple of hours hard work, I go take a shower. Since my parking
slot is alongside the compound wall, where we have some trees, one of the cons is having the birds dirty the car at night. Since I do not want bird droppings on my waxed beauty, I cover
the car with its cover.
My usual practice is to wash the cover also, when I give the car a wash, so as to wash off all
the dust on it, which would otherwise dirty the car. But I am too tired today and reckon that since I have anyway waxed the car, all it would need next day is for me to dust off the specks from the car.
All the washing/waxing has made me hungry and I walk to the restaurant some 1km away
from home to grab a quick dinner. While walking back, the wind is blowing pretty hard and
all the dust from the road is being blown around like a mini-sandstorm. It sort of feels like it might rain. Aah, that would be a welcome respite from the heat, I think to myself.
And then it strikes me that while it would be good to have some rains, it is going to make my
2-hour labour go waste. I hurry home hoping that I can get there before it rains so that I can atleast remove the car cover. Else, all the dust on it will get washed downonto the car. But
before I reach home, it starts drizzling and the cover is wet. No point in taking off the cover
now, because the damage would have been done anyway.
Since the time I started using a car in Chennai many years ago, I have noticed that no matter what month of the year it is, if I wash my car, it will rain that day/night. Some sort of crazy Murphy's law, wherein nature seems to collude against me. It might not be the case 100% of
the time, but it is almost like 95%. It has been such a sure pattern that if I call my wife and
tell her that it rained yesterday in Chennai after a long time, the first thing she would ask is,
"Did you by any chance wash the car yesterday?".
Chennai needs rains so that the lakes supplying water to the city remain full and there won't
be any water scarcity. Ofcourse, Chennai also cannot handle the kind of rains that we get in Kerala - the drainage system here is so bad that a light shower can leave the roads flooded.
So, there needs to be a balance here, like in maybe a good shower every two weeks or so.
And all it needs for this to happen, is for me to wash my car every 2 weeks. And if we need
a really good shower, all I need to do is follow up the wash with a good wax job. :-)
P.S. : Today morning, I remove the cover to see all the dust from the cover on the car.
It looks nothing like the shining beauty it was last night. Anyway, since the cover is anyway
wet, I wash it and leave it to dry. Take a wet cloth and wipe the car clean. While it does not
look like it did after the waxing yesterday, it is still presentable. I can live with that, if it solves Chennai's water problem. :-)
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