Diwali night. The air is heavy with a smell of India that has become familiar to me – pervasive wood smoke, and subtle hints of incense. Heavy, cyclonic rain falls onto dense vegetation creating dull, constant riffs as if on a drum. Above this, the sharp stutter of firecrackers sound in celebration of the festival of lights. Higher, deeper, are the sound of fireworks which illuminate the higher pediments of buildings steeped onto the hillside. The rain lessens to a percussive fill as the weather front rolls away, across tea plantations and beyond - over the Western Ghats and out to the Arabian Sea. The chorus of insects return, a myriad of clicks, chafes and loose snares.

Night moves on, the firecrackers and fireworks dissipate as sleep beckons and the intrusion of human noises fades.

Then, distantly, a woman’s voice calls into the brooding air: “Mera beta”, “Mera beta” (‘my son’, ‘my son’…). No sound follows. No breath of an echo. All is hushed, and I am enveloped by sleep amongst smoke laden mists.