‘Chasing the Monsoon’ is an engaging, humorously written travelogue by Journalist Alexander Frater. It documents the experiences the writer faced during his travel across India, following the monsoon right from its origin in South India to the North, and thereafter chasing it through the East and finally culminating in Cherrapunji.

The book is rich in descriptions; the writer comes across as passionate and knowledgeable in the passages where he describes the bursts and associated phenomena.  It is also an exposition of how bureaucracy works in India, and around twenty odd pages or so of the 270 page book highlights the inaccessibility of the North East (a region in which I grew up) for foreigners. If you have a dream, chase it…that’s what strikes us in this never-say-die spirit of the writer when permission to visit Cherrapunji was consistently being denied to him.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4.2 out of 5