WHEN THE FULL FURY of the monsoon finally does arrive in Munnar, two days after our arrival, it's heralded by a thick, solemn wind that gathers itself with the singular purpose of a wrecking ball. Cats and dogs run for cover. Birds disappear. Within seconds the air is filled with dust, branches, leaves, plastic bags, sheets of newspaper, food wrappers, and every other piece of stray garbage—this in a place that specializes in stray garbage.

Rain bounces like grapeshot across canvas awnings at outdoor markets. Chattering crowds disperse—a thousand directions for a thousand people. Women struggle to control their saris. Men on bicycles and mopeds lower their heads into the onslaught. Within half an hour, gutters rage like small rivers and clogged sewer drains cough up pungent backwash.

Prompted by a recent newspaper op-ed bemoaning the fact that Indians are now more likely to stay inside playing video games than enjoy the rain, I hit an older Keralan with my monsoon theory. "I grew up in the 1940s," he says in a cranky tone suggesting a pending hip replacement. "We walked to school in the heavy monsoon, and by the time we reached the school our clothes were completely drenched. Nowadays children travel only by car and bus. They can sit during the monsoon and be dry."

A younger guy is slightly less equivocal. "Of course, you may be right," he says. "Now there is no monsoon poetry. There are no new monsoon stories."

The next day, up with the roosters and on the road by daylight, Baiju and I come upon a monsoon casualty. Twenty feet below a two-lane mountain road, four guys are trying to push a Kawasaki motorcycle up a steep, muddy embankment. Moments ago, a jeep barreling into a blind curve in the wrong lane—a move as common in India as barreling into a blind curve in the correct lane—had set up a potential head-on collision.

"I braked suddenly and the bike slid from under me," the Kawasaki rider tells me, still half in shock. "I was saved by the bushes. My bike tumbled down the hill."

Kerala is known throughout India for the "trail of blood" caused by winding roads, wet asphalt, and what the government Trans­port Department ungraciously labels "inept motorists." Despite having only 3 percent of India's population, Kerala racks up 10 percent of the nation's traffic accidents. In 2007 it accounted for 3,778 deaths in 39,918 wrecks. That's more than ten traffic fatalities a day.

The Kawasaki is so heavy that the guys below look like they're struggling with an injured cow. Finally, someone arrives with a line of strong cord. One end is tied to the bike, the other thrown up the hill. It lands a yard from my feet.

Southern Indians are notably short and wiry, and since I'm six-three and unapol­ogetically rumbled past 200 years ago, I'm the obvious choice to anchor the ad hoc rope gang. With four guys pushing from below and five guys pulling from above, you'd think a motorcycle would be pretty easy to rescue. You'd be wrong. Still, the organization required to get eight screaming Hindus and Muslims and one gung-ho American to do anything in concert makes for an inspiring cultural moment.

With great effort, we haul the hunk of steel and rubber over roots, logs, trees, bushes, and boulders. Once the limping Kawasaki is back on the pavement, Baiju and I return to the car with the self-satisfaction of Good Samaritans. Baiju is feeling a little down about one thing, though.

"Had there been a serious injury," he grouses as we move down the road, "we might have gotten better photographs."