There is something magical about the rains, I am sure everybody loves them. Some like to get drenched till their bones go supple; some prefer to watch them fall down in sheets through the windows of their cosy homes sipping a hot cup of coffee while many others, just love the smell of wet earth as the first drops touch the ground.

A few others however, including me, usually head towards the mountains of the Western Ghats when the grey skies make their arrival. It is sort of a pilgrimage, an annual obligation to rough it out to see the mountains in their flamboyant attires. The jungles are thicker and more verdant than they ever were, the temperatures are too cold for the simple pleasures and the leeches seem to have suddenly multipled into millions. And the rains, hell, never seem to stop.

Once you get used to the first pin pricks of the Malnad rain, it is indeed a wonderful journey through the thickets. You get used to clatter of the rain drops hitting the glossy green leaves, which later turns into music that keeps haunting days after you have left the Ghats. The cicadas seem not too perturbed with the down pour and only seem to make their presence louder when rains begin. The moist earth seems to impart a certain flavour that you taste in through your heavy breath. You talk less, and listen more.

The clothes get ridiculously wet, the shoes become heavy with the water soaked in, and you sometimes wonder if this is really worth it. You realise that you are helpless, merely reduced to just another vulnerable animal that better listen to the rules of nature. It feels scary and unsafe. But it also feels liberating, all that you want to think about is how you are going to manage you next meal – Are you going to feel warm soon? Are you really going to get there? Do you think you could be lost?

Suddenly you think about your own self. And you realise that you don’t quite remember that last time you did that…

The rains seem to agree.