Driving - The Western Ghats in Monsoon

Few months back with the Monsoon setting in over the western ghats, had the opportunity to drive through the monsoon rains...Words could hardly describe the beauty or the serenity or the happiness experienced. Taking to the roads has been a joy to me for some time now, in the last few years have found greater joy driving in the rain. Have always loved the rain, but until recently (a couple of years or little more maybe) never cherished the thought of driving in the rain..Gladly no more the case.
Rains in the Ghats give the green an ethereal beauty.
The clean air, the smell of rain, low hanging clouds...when the line differentiating cloud and mist is very thin.There are few joys that match up to being on the roads with friends. Lucky am I to have folks who enjoy a drive with no fixed plans or timeline. Step out enjoy the rain, feel the wet earth beneath ones bare feet.. feel the drops of water trickle down ones face.. none of this, is any less then bliss, add to that a some brilliant songs managing to play itself at the right times.It is something indeed.

Funnily extreme joys has an uncanny way of being followed by a melancholic state bordering at sadness. Was told an interesting theory behind that, goes something like this - When the mind is over joyed and happy with nature, the mind relaxes and gets languid and at this time some of the not so happy moments which we have brushed under the carpet and bottled away just find a way of slipping out and more often than not one is not able to articulate why and what that emotion is about. Not sure if that is the case. On more then one occasion, driving through the wet, misty ghats with its foliage and canopied roads - when I believed, I had never before experienced that kind of beauty, peace and joy I found the melancholic cloud descend on me with out any  cause or calling.. wonder why and how?? Is it that one is not entitled to experience such beauty with out allowing a realization to hit - of where we are in our daily life, crowding ourselves with mundane at time meaningless tasks and activities to fill our hollow existence. Is it the hollowness?? or a glimpse of what life ought to be?? Aspirations?? All viewed through a set of parameters so different from the ones we use in our daily lives.Is it just the case of "The other side of the fence being greener" ? Is the mind being enamored by change? More often then not the road not taken is full of joy and we refuse to see the perils and challenges generously sprinkled (the likelihood of it being very high) as on any other road. Not sure what it  is....

One looks at this beauty and the effect it has and wonders, how a few generations back folks lived amidst these environs and possibly lived a fuller life.(not to mean that they did not have hardships). Amazed how a couple of hours and a few hundred kilometers away from our lives (Bangalore in this case) we are transported to another world.                                                                                                            

More pictures from the drives
PS: Afterthought - this never seems to happen driving through bright sunny terrains or for that on a star/moon lit night. Wonder if it is too do with the quality of light (seems to happen with wast wilderness at dusk too)