It rained all day and all night in Delhi, India yesterday. It was a record for rainfall in may, brought on by the cyclone Tauktae and the western disturbance.

I am calling it venalmazha (unexpected summer rain) but also thorathamazha (relentless downpour) - some of the many many Malayali words for the monsoon. I may not be right!

I used to stare at the jamun tree in the spring, now I wake up to the birds on the Amaltas tree, thinking about meghadootam by kalidasa, one of the greatest love poems ever written according to some. In this, a yaksha (a supernatural being) asks a cloud to carry a message of love and longing to his faraway lover. The poem is also a travelogue of the cloud who journeys from the Vindhyas to the Himalayas.

"Raincloud, you're a salve for those burning in love
You've got to take my message
Me - ripped by the wrath of wealth-god Kubera

Take my message to Alaka, city of the yaksa-king
...

Tossing curls
Sighing

Wives whose husbands are away will gaze at you
riding the wind-route"

Excerpted from http://poetry.sangamhouse.org/2014/08/meghadutam-by-kalidasa-translated-by-mani-rao/