A Photograph from the Veranda: Monsoon in the Ghats

There is a photograph I keep coming back to. It was taken from the veranda of a homestay in the Western Ghats one July afternoon. It shows nothing special: a red-tiled roof edge, a row of potted plants, a stretch of wet coffee bushes, a line of silver oak trees and, behind them, a wall of white cloud. Rain is visible as a blur across the frame. There is no person in it, no monument, no waterfall.

It is the best photograph of the trip.

An afternoon of rain

We arrived the day before, after a long drive in heavy rain. That morning had been spent walking the estate with our host, learning the difference between arabica and robusta, being shown the pepper vines climbing the trees, picking leeches off our ankles. Lunch was rice, a fiery chicken curry, a vegetable dish with jackfruit and a sour, tangy chutney. Then the rain came back, as it always does in July, and there was nothing to do but sit on the veranda and watch it.

The rain in the Western Ghats in July does not fall politely. It comes in waves. First you hear it approaching through the trees, a rising roar like distant traffic. Then the first heavy drops hit the roof tiles. Then everything disappears behind a curtain of water, and the gutters overflow, and the courtyard becomes a pond, and the sound is so loud you have to raise your voice. Then, after minutes or an hour, it eases. The drumming softens to a patter. The cloud lifts a little. A bird calls. And then the next wave comes.

What you notice when you stop

Sitting still for an afternoon is not something most travellers do. We are trained to keep moving, to see the next thing, to tick off the list. The veranda taught me something different.

You notice the way the light changes, from dark grey to silver to a sudden, brief yellow when the sun almost breaks through. You notice the birds that come out between showers: a whistling thrush on the roof, a pair of bulbuls on the wire, a kingfisher on the fence post. You notice the plants: the moss on the steps, the ferns growing out of the walls, the tiny orchid on the trunk of the jackfruit tree. You notice the sounds, how the frogs start up when the rain is heavy, how the dripping from the roof has its own rhythm.

You notice the household too. The dog that comes to lie at your feet. Our host’s mother, walking slowly to the kitchen with a basket of leaves from the garden. A worker coming back from the estate under an umbrella made from a plastic sheet. The smell of wood smoke and frying from the kitchen as someone makes evening snacks.

None of this is in a guidebook. All of it is the Western Ghats.

The art of staying put

This issue has argued for slow travel in the monsoon: walking more, driving less, staying longer in fewer places. The veranda is the logical end point of that argument. It is the place where you finally stop trying to see the Ghats and let them come to you.

For many people who live in the Ghats, the veranda is part of daily life in the monsoon. It is where you sit with coffee in the morning, where visitors are received, where children play when it is too wet to go out, where old people watch the world. Traditional houses in Karnataka and Kerala often have deep, shaded verandas designed for exactly this weather: protection from rain and sun, while staying connected to the outside.

When you stay in a homestay, the veranda is an invitation to join that life for a while.

How to take a photograph like this

If you want to take a photograph from the veranda, here are a few thoughts:

Do not wait for a clear day. The rain is the subject.
Look for layers. Something close, like a roof edge or a plant; something in the middle, like bushes or trees; and something far, like a hill or cloud.
Use the light. The moments just after a heavy shower, when the light changes, are often the best.
Keep your camera dry. Shoot from under the roof, and wipe the lens often.
Include life if it comes. A bird, a dog, a person walking past with an umbrella, but only with their consent if they are recognisable.
Or not. Some of the best veranda photographs have nothing in them but rain and green.

What a photograph cannot hold

Of course, the photograph cannot hold everything. It cannot hold the sound of the rain, which was the main thing. It cannot hold the smell of wet earth and wood smoke, or the taste of the coffee, or the feeling of cool damp air on your skin after months of heat in the city. It cannot hold the conversation with our host that evening, about elephants raiding the estate, about the change in rainfall patterns over the years, about her children who have moved to Bengaluru and the question of who will look after the estate in future.

But it reminds me of all of that. That is what a good travel photograph does.

A closing thought

The Western Ghats come alive in July. You can chase that aliveness on ghat roads and waterfall trails, and some of that chasing is worth it, as this issue shows. But you can also find it by doing almost nothing at all. Sit on a veranda. Watch the rain. Let the afternoon pass. You will come home with fewer photographs, perhaps, but better ones.