Thirty Percent Chance of Enlightenment

What started out as an assignment for National Geographic–to watch the monsoon make landfall in India, and then write about the almost mystical art of monsoon forecasting–went horribly wrong when a misunderstanding led to me being banned from every meteorological office in India. In desperation, I set off across southern India in a car provided by an Australian named Faith who ran spiritual guided tours.

My spiritual tour turned out to be a quest for the meaning of water. It took me through the spice villages high in the Western Ghats, to a Hindu wedding that left all the major participants drenched and finally into a holy river where the temple elephants bathed.

Along the way I discovered the history of the umbrella and the spiritual dangers of plumbing, I heard about rituals in which donkeys and frogs were married in order to induce rain, and finally, as my resistance was finally crumbling, I was granted a glimpse into the meaning of water.

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