Sky gazing begins...

So the month of June is upon us. In our country, the transition from May to June does not just mean a flip of the calendar. With the arrival of June, the collective gaze of the nation is transfixed to the sky, looking to see the first glimmer of grey cloud, feel the first whiff of the south-westerly winds and, finally, hold the first droplets of the monsoon. The sky gazing has thus begun in full earnest....

The monsoons transform India perhaps like nothing else does. And no one is immune from the sky gazing. People living in the high rises in the cities await the onset of the monsoon in order to alleviate their water woes, but on the other hand, the people living besides them in slums actually dread the rains, not knowing when their homes would be flooded (memories of a July afternoon five years ago are still fresh). The civil contractors gaze at the sky and perhaps hope that the monsoons, like all things Indian, would arrive later than expected, thus giving them precious time to complete their long-delayed projects and thus escape the citizen's wrath. Teenagers welcome the arrival of the monsoon and off they go on their treks to various hills in the Sahyadris. And of course, who can forget the real India living in the rural areas ? For them, the monsoon does not sustain life, it is life itself !!!. 

The first rains transfer the landscape into a nice cover of green. The smell of the earth after the first rains is simply the most beautiful aroma one can hope to savor. And although it does bring about the occasional havoc in the cities, there is no denying it resuscitates life, quite literally, after a hot and sizzling summer.And this year, the monsoons are more important than usual. With Mumbai reeling under its worst water crisis and the rural areas having faced drought-like conditions, it remains to be seen if this season, the monsoon acts as the elixir that they always have been.

So here's praying for great monsoons (especially in the fields and the water reservoirs :))

Cheers

Amit