25 Travel Bloggers from India Share Monsoon Pictures
Many Monsoons ago, one fine evening I received a call from a friend, “You want to Chase Monsoon ?”.
Without thinking or blinking I said – “OK, when do we leave ?”
“Day after tomorrow 5 am, “he said. – “Cool, see you then,” I said with a big grin.
The only challenge was he was in Bangalore and I was in Gurgaon. But a promise to chase Monsoon is a “Promise to chase Monsoon”. So next day I reached the office, kept my backpack in the car, attended a few meetings, suffered a severe attack of Viral Fever due to change in season. My voice choked, my hands trembled as I tried to type on the keyboard, and there were pre-monsoon sweat beads on my forehead. Needless to say, my team took notice and trying to hide their joy suggested I go home and take some rest. Long story short, I was advised by my colleagues to go home and rest, few of them even offered to take me home as I was in no position to drive. But as a valiant knight I said: “No I can manage, let me call a cab, you guys must attend the 7 am PST conference call with mortgage insurance client.” So I called in a cab, clandestinely collected my bag from the car, dumped the tie in the car boot and jumped in the waiting cab telling the building security that I will collect my car after a few days.
“Woohoo, Bangalore here I come”, I screamed the moment I saw the board of “Airport 7 KM on the National Highway 8 that connects the now Sanskari Guru Gram to then Durachari Delhi. I boarded the last flight from Delhi to Bangalore, tried to sleep with one eye shut while keeping the other one open to check the clouds outside. Anyways late night or early morning I reached the then Bangalore airport which was half asleep and half inundated in Monsoon waters, somehow I reached the friends place and immediately we started our project “ Chasing Monsoon” from Bangalore to Gurgaon. But this post is not at all about our road trip chasing monsoon, nor is it about Chasing The Monsoon, book by Alexander Frater. But both the trip as well as the book may have some subconscious impact on my desire to relive that trip once again for many years now. Every year I have been planning a repeat of the trip but from Kanyakumari to Delhi but have been grossly unsuccessful in my attempt. So I did the next best thing, I decided to crowdsource my Chasing Monsoon project and requested fellow travelers, bloggers, and photographers to share their monsoon pictures with me. Luckily for me, most of my traveler friends were kind enough to share the monsoon pictures. Soon mailbox was blessed with pictures from various parts of the country from Mumbai to Kolkata and from Darjeeling and one even from Hong Kong. Though originally the plan was to keep images only from India but how can one say no when you receive so many of your traveler friends some whom I have met in real life and others in virtual world keep your mailbox popping with beautiful pictures that represent the spirit of “ Chasing Monsoon “
As the number of images that I received was more than the normal images typically a blog post will have, I decided to break the post into 3 sections, each covering a different aspect of how we look and experience the monsoon.
So the post is divided into 3 sections based on the theme of the images received.
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Umbrellas
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Nature
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City Life
Now you may feel some pictures can come in more than one section or are better suited to another section please bear with me and let the love for monsoons flow around without judging me. After all who does not slip a bit in the rains? When you get rains you love them will all your heart and enjoy the chai pakoras and the potholes in the same vein.
An old man and an old building bearing rain in Kolkata Photo by Saurabh Arya of यायावरी Blog
Photo by Nirdesh Singh – Just Tripping :No he’s not a mannequin – he is a live one- Dev D Rainy Nights in Paharganj After many long years when it actually feels like monsoons, you find yourself in the deliciously slushy streets of backpackers’ haven.
Monsoon smiles on the face of these girls in Kumaun Photographer: Deepti Asthana – DATravelography
Chasing Monsoon in Darjeeling – Photograph by Alka Kaushik – Life In Transit
Vasu Devan of Digital Lens Reflex catches some Colorful Umbrellas in a Bhegee Raat in Uttrakhand near Jim Corbett National Park
Chasing Monsoon Special: Clicked by Arti S. My Yatra Diary : The Man Behind the Blue Umbrella. (Mumbai, Marine Drive Promenade). Blissfully ignorant of the chatter, chaos, activity and a world of people who had descended by the beautiful rounded promenade along Marine Drive in Mumbai to enjoy an evening walk in the monsoons, he stood there alone with his umbrella, facing towards the sturdily greying nimbus skyline that rose far away above sky-rise buildings behind a thickening blanket of haze. I stood there behind him and wondered of the man standing in the calming shade of the blue umbrella. What was he reflecting about? Perhaps the day that had gone by or tomorrow, about his family, or life or … ? Or, was it about dreams? His shirt fluttered in the noisy breeze, and trousers puffed up above the office boots. Just then, a huge sea wave broke the shore spraying water all over. The umbrella started moving, and soon the man was lost in the crowd. Only that, he had left behind a mystical arc of thoughts and dreams that continued to gleam brightly like a rainbow in the steadily deepening monsoon.
Amit Kagra Back 2 Routes clicks Darjeeling by mobile : Normally with hill station is associated with beautiful mountain ranges, stunning viewpoints and DARJEELING is no different. My trip to the hill station was in the middle of rainfall. I experienced a different side of the place. Rains had created a feeling of suspense all around through that mist
Suprio Bose captures some kids with umbrella in the monsoon rains
Now let us move to our next section of Chasing Monsoon where our travel bloggers have shared the images of Chasing Monsoon with nature in the backdrop.
This is a special entry by talented young photographer Nishant Sharma who clicked this image during his family holiday in Odisha. Nishant all of 9 years has an eye for photography as we can see in this picture. Thanks to VJ Sharma for sharing this for readers of desi Traveler
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Shailza Sood Dasgupta not only shares this raindrop with us but also the poem she wrote: Moisture laden black clouds embrace the sky and dull day changes into the romantic evening… Thunderbolt announces the arrival of the storm and lightning illuminates the mystic sky.. . The drops of rain kiss the heated earth and every particle of universe rejoice!
Ruby Singh who writes Life and Its Experiments shares picture of this raindrop clinging for dear life on this delicate Nerium flower bud
When the white blanket of mist embraces the hills, the cold wind runs through your body, the sound of raindrops create rhythms in the surrounding, and when you make your way through the twisted trail. Holding my colourful umbrella, I just stood still on a hilltop to admire nature with a smile. Photo by Parnashree Devi – My Travel Diary
Nidhi Joshi of Coins and Maps shares this image PFA a pic from my recent trip to Nainital from Delhi. This was shot on our way back to Delhi from Nainital on 3rd July 2016. We stopped here and had fresh and juicy corns for breakfast which were roasted over a huge log of wood (considering the stock this guy had – a huge log of wood was required), rubbed with butter and hot and spicy green chutney. Never had anything like this before.
Manu Khandelwal of Harstuff Travel clicked this image of – Woods in the clouds while coming down from Triund Trek in Himachal Pradesh
Here is a picture Akanksha Dureja – Direct Dil Se clicked on July 2nd, 2016 at Prakriti Farms, Punjab. 🙂
Here’s my rainy day image. I love Delhi in rains and there’s nothing better than sitting in my balcony, having a cup of tea, watching raindrops play with the leaves of the Semal tree which is just outside my balcony. Image by Sushmita Sarkar of My Unfinished Life
After nature pictures of Chasing Monsoon let us go and visit our cities from where our Travel Bloggers have captured the life and the magic of monsoons as our cities celebrate and cope with monsoon simultaneously. What a tragedy our cities go through every year, with nature’s bounties comes the pain of inefficiencies of our bureaucratic and political class whose incompetence leads to total chaos in our cities just after a few showers. But let us still enjoy these pictures that have arrived from different parts of India and one picture from Hong Kong
Priya Pathiyan who pens Hungry Happy Hippy clicked this image on a rainy day near CST station through her taxi window. The picturesque colonial buildings on DN Road made for a beautiful backdrop. It was the typical monsoon day with grey skies and the raindrops pelting down heavily on the roof. The light in the Mumbai monsoon is always special, making all the colours extra vibrant. The black-and-yellow taxis we call kaali-peelis, the red and green traffic lights and the freshness of the rain-washed greens stood out very brightly though just a blur in the rain.
One look at this image by Nisha Jha of ” Le Monde – A Poetic Travail “ fame and you know why Monsoons are loved as well as dreaded at the same time in Mumbai. Nisha clicked this image with a cell phone. In her words – When I was trying to cross the road, I saw this car was struggling hard to move away from this road. 🙂 These potholes were quite deep. They rightly say “Mumbai ki roads pe potholes nahi hote, potholes pe road hoti hai.“.
Svetlana a global traveler who writes Maverick Bird clicked this picture of the famed yellow taxi of Kolkata on a rainy day.
Jayanti Pandey who writes And So I Felt clicked this image from her apartment balcony in Gurgaon
Swati Saxena of Lost in Maps shares this intriguing image that she clicked from her balcony in Delhi
This is Monsoon in backyard of Mridul Pareek’s home in Ajmer, where has spent his childhood and now authors Urban Rabbit Blog
Here is a captivating image of India Gate captured by V J Sharma of Traveling Camera Blog
Chasing Monsoon by Tarun Gaur aka My Greedy Backpack while he was on a Road Trip To Rajasthan
After the images from India, let me share two images that were clicked outside India, the first one is from Hong Kong by Aditi Mathur Kumar and second is from Bali in Indonesia by Archana Singh.
Aditi Mathur Kumar clicked first showers of Monsoon in June in Hong Kong
Monsoon magic from the island of Bali clicked by Archana Singh – Travel See Write
But before we go we have our final post for this collaborative aka crowdsourced post on Chasing Monsoon. The final post here is not an image but a short video that professional travel photographer Ajay Sood, who writes his blog at Travelure clicked in Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan.
A Video of Chasing Monsoon in Ranthambore by Ajay Sood of Travelure
With this, I would like to thank all the wonderful travel bloggers who helped me in Chasing Monsoon and shared their images here for the readers of desi Traveler blog. May their blogs be always showered with page views. This post was supposed to be even bigger but due to vagaries of nature, some of the cities did not get any rains at the the time of this post going live hence I could not get the pictures from other blogger friends who wanted to contribute. But you let us hope we will continue this tradition of collaborative crowd-sourced blog posts on desi Traveler.
Oh and if you have not read the book Chasing The Monsoon by Alexander Frater, I would say you should 🙂
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56 Responses to “Chasing Monsoon – Indian Travel Bloggers Chase Rain”
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A very energetic and informative article.
I loved your post and all the amazing photographs. Keep sharing.
This is a spectacular post! Guess I must have been travelling when this post was getting compiled.
What joy to read the captions of long lost memories. Slow claps for everyone.
Thannks Shubham…:)
Nice article Desi traveler.
Thanks 🙂
thanks man…. i really likd your article.
🙂
The idea you convey is very nice .I like it.
great pictures! Some of them depicting the fun in monsoon are great!
Thanks a lot Arv, so glad you liked the images..
This was a great read, love your blog and the pictures.
Thanks Ratheesh
Lovely post . Great thinking and next time when you do I will participate
Sure Anindya looking forward to collaborating with you…. 🙂
Lovely post! Great pictures and thank you for introducing me to so many new bloggers!
Thanks Chaitali… hope to collaborate with you also soon…
I did not know that some one can CHASE the monsoon. I specially come to this post from another weblog, I accidentally mouse hover at your name and got your blog link. I attracted to it because I love travelling too.
I also write blogs and some of my post are about travelling too. You must check them out.
Dear Krishna… Welcome to desi Traveler . If one can chase dreams, Monsoon is much easier to chase.. though totally unpredictable.. 🙂
Wow! The monsoon became even more beautiful with this great collection of pictures and your exciting story… Wish you a Happy Monsoon 🙂
Thanks, Sarmistha….Happy Monsoons… 🙂
Monsoons in India is something else. Everything around you comes to life and there’s visible excitement in the air, especially when you are not stuck in a traffic snarl.
Ah, don’t even want to talk about Gurujam the mother of all traffic jams in Gurgaon… hopefully we will enjoy next monsoon without these Jams
I have read the book Prasad, in your next edition I will send a picture too!
Thanks, looking forward to the same 🙂
Oh wow!!
What a great collection. So much variety, so many faces of season. Great idea, Prasad. Thumbs up to you and your contributors. 🙂
thanks Dee. so glad you liked the idea, hope to repeat it soon…
Experienced Indian monsoon through the images. Thank you for sharing such lovely images!
Thanks Mamata..
Monsoon time tends to bring everything alive, hence is a photographer’s delight. That is a great collection of monsoon images and what makes it even better is that, national or international, there are no boundaries here. Thank you for featuring mine, I should pick that book sometime soon! 🙂
Thanks Arti.. it was so wonderful to see all travelers collaborating and share their pictures, that is what has made the post so special…
Thank you so much for including my photo.
Loved the compilation. And I can see many moods of monsoon here. A treat to our eyes. 🙂
thanks Nisha.. I too enjoyed looking at all the monsoon pictures
Great post! and “durachari delhi was epic” 😀
🙂
Hi Prasad, Thank you for this lovely post. As I write this it is still raining and feel like having corn on the cob from Nainital once again.
And that is a perfect reason to travel again 🙂 thanks
yes definitely
Every picture has a story to share..a story about “how we welcomed monsoon this time”.. wonderful collection of photos. Thanks for sharing all the photos! 🙂
You are welcome Saumy.. and thanks on behalf of all the contributors too
Okay now that was such an interesting collage of images. Enjoyed it!
🙂 Mission accomplished I would say thanks
Lovely collection of monsoon frames! Yeah, Chasing the Monsoon is a fabulous read.
Thanks Niranjan… glad you enjoyed the same…
Absolutely loved this idea of Chasing the monsoons through India 🙂 Super post and great pictures!
Thanks Akanksha…all because of pictures that travelers like you submitted 🙂
That’s a special post and beautiful photographs. Everyone has different way of looking at Monsoons and depicting through photographs.
Thanks for joining VJ loved all your pics.. but had to use only one and please pass on my thanks to Nishant for his wonderful submission 🙂
I love the diverse places the photos have come in from. Says so much in its own way. Nice collaborative post 🙂
Thanks Amrita.good to know you liked the post.. 🙂
Beautiful images..
thanks
That’s quite a compilation of great pictures which capture the essence of monsoon.My appettite is now whetted for more. Looking forward to the Bangalore to Delhi Road-trip account. I am game for a road trip from Kanya Kumari to Delhi or even further or maybe a heritage circular route.
PS – Thanks for including my photo 🙂
Thanks a lot for participating Vasu sir jee 🙂
Given that the images had to be a recent one, I like the efforts by all of them. I wish I could have contributed but rains didn’t favor me. My favourites are by Saurabh Arya, Priya Pathiyan, Nisha Jha, Svetlana and Nishant Sharma. Nice blog.
Thanks Abhinav..we still have Monsoon Season 🙂
Loved the Post 🙂 and what lovely Pics captured and Compiled Sirjee !!
Thanks Pooja..:)