Summer was here!

Just a note to say, "Summer was here!"
A blistering, roasting, energy-sapping tropical kind of summer.
Reviled, perhaps. Moaned about, definitely. Yet so infinitely a part of us.

(Harvest time: fields along the  Punjab - Haryana highway)

Summer was here. All too soon the mad exuberance of Spring and the harvest season slows to a sultry crawl.
When it's Summer, the earth swings to a slower rhythm. The clock slows, sounds mute, movements gentle. It's the Summer way of life.

(Baradari palace, Patiala)

White is so beautiful now. Especially the icy-cool white shot through with tropical hues.

(on the Dehradun - Rishikesh highway)

And far away in cooler zones, there is an explosion of jacaranda clouds all along the highways, leaving travellers gaping and over-awed.
I'm sure that I was not the only one who rang up someone to gasp about the jacarandas in bloom.

(Patio of Ananda in the Himalayas) 

And just as I am ready to melt into the ground, the mountains call and I am rejuvenated.

(Patio of Ananda in the Himalayas)

A winter-garden within hours of the heat and dust of the scorching tropics? There's something so surreal about that. But I love it, and the view of misty mountains fading into the horizon spins a web of wander-lust in me.

(Monsoon clouds over the backwaters in Kochi)

Summer was here. And now it's on its way out. A flock of monsoon clouds are busy hustling it out. Shooing it away before settling in.I hope it's going to be a long cool, wet season ... goodbye Summer!