From beetle hunts in Mussoorie to Goa’s monsoon forests: Stephen Alter’s stories of rain

8 min readJul 18, 2026 02:18 PM IST

First published on: Jul 18, 2026 at 02:17 PM IST

LIKE IN most places, in Landour, an outpost of Mussoorie in Uttarakhand, the monsoon always arrived accompanied with its rituals. The morning one, says writer Stephen Alter, involved knocking the heels of his sneakers and shaking them vigorously to check no scorpions were lounging inside. Then as day would turn to night, a young Alter would don his gumboots, pick up an umbrella and go beetle collecting.

From then to now, a lot has changed in Landour and elsewhere but what remains unchanged is the unpredictability of the monsoon. “The inevitability of rain but also its unpredictable nature gives this season a special feeling of anticipation and suspense. Every year we wait expectantly for the monsoon to arrive but we’re never quite sure… When will the rain start? Is it really here? Where has it gone? How long will it last? The monsoon is always full of surprises,” he says. Alter’s recent book, The Fragrance of Rain: A Brief History of the Monsoon (Aleph), captures the unpredictability as well as the cultural, literary and ecological landscape of one of the greatest shows on earth.