In the month of May, the Sun turns towards the Tropic of Cancer, the rich turn towards hill stations and beaches, and the poor join their hands towards the sky. The heat slowly builds up, gradually increasing the price of ice creams. Iced water, which would be given free a few months ago is now charged a single rupee. The earth is panicking due to thirst. The birds waltz in chaos, mistaking a blue sky for a pool of water. Buds shrivel and leaves wilt upwards, almost as if begging the clouds for a single drop.
​This is the point where every person in Mumbai has given up, and hopes desperately for relief. First of June is when everyone become a meteorologist, trying to predict the first shower. “It’ll rain on the fourth,” “No, the clouds are grey enough, it should rain by tomorrow.”
​The rain is kind of egoistic. It doesn’t manifest itself until almost everyone wishes it did. It teases, torments, tantalises; with its gales that fight trees. The ruffling of leaves, the imperceptible singing of birds and the darkening of sky prepares the stage.
Finally it rains.
​It rains as if it had never rained before. The rain is almost furious, dangerous. Kids try to make fun until they are pulled inside. Some are stuck in traffic on the highways, while some prepare fried snacks, which taste magical in the rain. It turns white outside, a building thirty feet away, invisible. Everybody notices the captivating smell that rises from the earth, something which they believed that had forgotten. They exclaim, “Oh, I love this smell,” “Let us sit and revel in this fragrance.” But they cannot find a word for it in all the regional languages of India, that perfectly describes this smell.
​In my country, spices and fragrances are part of the heritage. From incense sticks to essential oils, they are available in every scent: Arabian jasmine, Rose, Sandalwood. But they have never been able to condense this scent, and bottle it.
​Petrichor defines it perfectly: the peace of a comfort long awaited, the relief of quenching of thirst, and the simple smell of earth that draws every city dweller, living within monotonous, linear, brick and glass structures, back to nature.