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Dear Readers,

                     A writer's task is to replicate his experiences in the minds of his readers. I wish that I am able to show you a picture which I witness everyday or rather every moment of my stay here.

                 It gives me a little pain to pen down my thoughts tonight because the choice of topic is such: Monsoons. As for any average Indian, it is one subject which evokes strong sentiments inside me from within. Every year, a heated and pent-up sub-continent eagerly awaits moisture laden clouds fom both the sides of its long coast. This year the dispersal of rains has been abysmally dismal. No other part of India can claim to be drier than the one where I am residing at. It is an area that receives scanty rainfall even in times of a bountiful monsoon all across India. So, you can very well imagine its condition when a drought strikes with full force. The month of Saawan is all but over and not even a drop of water has showered over this tract.

                With each passing day, the heat of the desert seems to be taking a toll on our lives and our dreams. The unseemly extension of the summer wrath has dashed all hopes of a joyous reward to the people for braving intense temperatures for well more than two months. Each day, when piercing beams of light from the scorching Sun break through every conceivable glaze, thousands of pairs of eyes rise up in defiance to scan the sky hoping to sight an army of black clouds dispatched in aid. Men and beasts, soil and shrub, all are haggardly awaiting 'the arrival'.

                  For me, the brunt of this famine is more severe than that for the general lot here. I was hell-bent on drenching my soul in incessant monsoonal showers this year at any cost. I devised a careful plan. In the month of June, I traveled to Kerala in order to greet the advancing outbursts. I was lucky to get caught in frightening downpurs, deafening thunderstorms and an air so moist that you could feel watery while breathing.  However, all this lasted for a few days only as I had to pack my bags and leave picture-perfect locales to return to my desert home. Now, here I am engulfed in a hot wont. My longing for rains is like the pangs for emotional anchorage suffered by a person who has come a long way past his first consummation. It is like the cravings of a woman tormented by unrequited love .

                      Nothing short of a wet explosion can satiate such thirsts.......