As a foreigner, my vision of India shifts constantly with new insights gathered daily. It is, am... By Jane Rankin-Reid Jane R

As a foreigner, my vision of India shifts constantly with new insights gathered daily. It is, among many other wonderful things, a great nation for ancient and contemporarily invented symbols. A cyclist hauling a rickety, wooden trailer loaded with name brand computers pedaling through Delhi's peak-hour traffic yesterday narrowly avoids a hand-painted blue municipal water tank, sloshing its precious contents in its wake. A herd of cows pause at a paan shop in a busy market district as if on a diplomatic tour of inspection, sniffing the footpath, jostling one another for space as small vehicles make their way cautiously around them. The whoop of joy in linking hands with friends to race across an eight-lane highway in the dead of night, dodging cars, shrieking with exhilaration, capturing freedom in a surge of short-lived courage, bursting into safety after daring to dream of being immortal.

And then the rains came. At first a few polite gasps of moisture dribbled down from the puffy clouds. But soon the fat droplets became splashes, pouring onto Delhi's dusty highways, byways and back streets. I rushed to the window like a child seeing her first snowflakes. It is months before the monsoon season begins, so the experience of rain in India is new to me. As the days go by, the rain continues intermittently and the city's streets submerge under small inland seas. Fast moving buses and trucks dive like mechanical buffalos into the dank waters, emerging triumphantly on the other side, flanks streaming with muddy liquid, splashing passers-by in their wake.

It seems ironic then that my residential district in Delhi is experiencing severe water shortages. Every evening I tap my tank like a drought-stricken Australian farmer measuring precious supplies, every morning I lower my mobile phone's brightly-lit face into the dark, empty depths of the tank to illuminate its unchanging water levels. Although my island state is much wetter than continental Australia, farmers and farmers' children like me the world over have a unique way of gazing into the skies and praying to the passing clouds.

A few days ago, after another muddy journey through the sodden streets, Madam tourist resumed her cultural duties and visited the magnificent Humayun's tomb. Falling into line behind a group of westerners, I suddenly realised these middle-aged visitors were the first firangis I'd seen in weeks, other than the sight of myself in the mirror. Part of me wanted to follow them for the rest of the afternoon, to listen to their sharp, alien voices echoing incongruously in the stillness. The other half of me wanted to run. I paused to lose the sound of their chatter over the intonations of their guide. Lost in thought, my fingers traced over the modern graffiti scratched into the walls of the main memorial. In the distance, the exquisite sounds of Sufi musicians rehearsing for the evening's concert blessing me with glorious ancient notes. Soon I am transported into an indescribable sensory aural realm, lost in an unknown past, availed to a munificent future.

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