No rain cloud over Kumarakom

In June every year, with unfailing regularity, the rainclouds begin to discharge their bounty on God's Own Country. Having lived in Thiruvananthapuram, the capital city of Kerala, for the first two decades of my life, I have experienced the magic of the monsoons first-hand. The day the skies open, the schools also reopen. I still remember the thrill of walking to school, sloshing about in puddles of rainwater —the muddier, the better. And then there was the heady smell of damp earth to intoxicate the senses until one threw all restraint to the winds and did an impromptu rain dance before the startled eyes of passersby. Such was the spell that the monsoons cast on impressionable minds.