A vast tropical sky, deep grey on one side & light almost whitish grey on another. Wild gusts of cool winds that followed a dusty gale. Smell of the earth softly arises as a harbinger to the monsoon rains! Without any warning the skies open & it pours heavily as if the earth was parched for rain for ages & it soaks it all up till it can’t take anymore. Streams of muddy water now run clear along roadsides & lanes and flood the roads into little canals. One can stand in this rain & feel their entire being been washed off all impurities it ever had! And when the rain begins to soften the earth smell returns & it’s strangely reassuring. The winds have knocked fruits off the mango trees – fruits not quite ripe yet! The red cotton flowers are strewn on the grass and children collect them so that they can have a little flower fight with them. Evening drifts in by then & the evening is cool yet humid. That’s what kolkatta monsoons are like… Nowhere else have I ever experienced this kind of beauty.. Nowhere else did I ever think at that very moment how much I will cherish the rains! No other place made me nostalgic about the rain whilst it occurred. I don’t know why it affects me so but so many days I find myself yearning for the kolkatta rains!!