Whilst we have all been cooking in 40 degree heat and now await the rains, in Goa, where we start this odyssey, the monsoon rains have also just come. The heat will have broken a little and the humidity too. To welcome the rains, Goans hold a festival in honour of San Joao (St. John the Baptist) which is celebrated with much enthusiasm. This is a festival with its roots in pagan antiquity that only men take part in – they plunge into their neighbours’ wells and hold wild canoe races on rivers and lakes chanting loudly “San Joao, San Joao, Viva San Joao” while wearing ornate crowns of local vegetation.
I also learnt there is a word that describes the moment the first rain falls, and you almost feel the plants gasp and stretch up to meet it. That scent of the earth breathing is called Petrichor and is coined from the ancient Greek for “blood of stones”. Now you can buy the scent in a bottle, it is called mitti attar and is created using a century old process in Kannauj in Uttar Pradesh, which is the perfume capital of India.
