It feels almost like home. South China doesn?t have the three-month monsoon that Mumbai does, but it has enough of its characteristics to remind you of home.

The depressing front pages of newspapers, for one. Heavy rains have resulted in floods in the last two weeks and already caused the death of 607 people all over China; 124 are missing. Last year, 400 died.

This year, the rains have been the highest ever in south China . It hasn?t rained so much in Guangzhou for the last 400 years. As in India, the ?development? pattern, most evident in the reckless blasting and denuding of mountains, only increases the destruction wrought by heavy rains.

But this year, though farms have been the worst hit in the torrential rains in the south, nature has also taken its revenge on the very projects which are at the root of its destruction. Flood waters have destroyed the infrastructure which makes Guangdong a foreign investors? haven: highways and bridges have been swept away, landslides have damaged railway lines linking this province to Beijing and to Hong Kong, stranding lakhs of business travellers.

This year, urbanites shared with villagers the experience of being evacuated. BMWs and Hyundais loaded with valuables could be seen making off at night alongside trucks and carts, as sirens warned the 100,000 residents of the industrial city of Wuzhou.

Hardly waterproof

But the most tragic destruction, caused by 200 mm of rain in just 40 minutes, was of a school in a low-lying village in the north-east, with 117 children inside it. Teachers smashed windows to pull students onto the roof; 14-year-olds tried to form human walls against breaking doors, with one of them even singing a song to keep up his classmates? morale. Such was the outrage that the provincial governor publicly asked for punishment, and the local Communist Party secretary and police chief were being investigated for not doing enough to prevent the tragedy.

On a more mundane level, it?s both disconcerting and gratifying to note that south China?s glittering new cities actually have potholes, especially since some of them don?t have half the traffic that Indian metros do. But the potholes are few ? and, as in India, found on newly built roads. The old roads, built 15-20 years ago during the beginning of China?s ?economic reform?, have remained smooth. Perhaps the enthusiasm of ?opening up? was so widespread and genuine that corruption was totally out of place then. Now, a new expressway is just one more expressway, one more ?golden? opportunity.

Frog opera

Here too, one sees cars stranded in the middle of flooded roads, but usually only after a long and heavy downpour. One wonders why no provision was made to drain out rainwater in these otherwise well-planned cities. It?s also rare to find a house without a damp wall or a leaking roof. But all this pales into insignificance at the sight that greets you at Guangzhou?s new international airport: buckets placed strategically to collect rainwater leaking from its fancy roof.

There is another side to the rains: the rhythmic croaking of frogs and chirping of crickets all night, not in some country house in the suburbs, but right in the heart of the city. Given the eating habits of south China, coupled with the over-zealous ?Away with all pests? campaign under Mao, birds and stray animals are a rare sight in the cities. The only dogs you see are those owned by the new elite, or strange stunted breeds for sale in tiny cages. So, to be kept awake by a frog opera night after night is a reassuring experience: their guttural sounds in the rain tell you all is not lost; there?s hope still for the environment even in a province where dogs to frogs, everything is eaten.