India, July 27 -- Dear Reader,

When I return to Mumbai, I find my bedcovers smelling musty. They remind me of a friend's complaint about her South American trip-how the rainforest's beauty came with mold creeping into everything: clothes, drawers, even her journals and her graph paper.

So too with Mumbai's rains. Inside, it's cozy; outside, a watery wonderland. Rain pelts off the coconut palms, a lone kite perches on the tree outside my window, and the garden below is a pool of brown water, a still life mirror of caramel and bronze. But like the rainforests, this paradise too has its price.

"I'm being eaten alive-it's got to be bed bugs," my youngest groans. When the sun grudgingly appears, I haul our mattresses onto the ledge, only fo...