Monsoon season starts about this time of year (May) in kerala. A monsoon is a tropical wind that blos continuously. More information about monsoons can be found on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsoon

Its normal practice in India to use surge protectors to protect against power surges during storms and power surges during regular use as well. Within a few weeks of reaching India I purchased a 500VA/200W UPS to protect my computer system. While the UPS couldn't support plugging in a 17 inch CRT (issues were caused during boot up where more power was needed by the system during boot up than the UPS could channel leading to BIOS error,) it was more than enough to protect all the components inside the computer casing and a DSL Modem.