Goa, Aug. 8 -- Vivek Menezes

Few places can rival Goa for our front-row seat to the grand pageantry of the annual monsoon, so vital to flora, fauna, agriculture and economy that it is legitimately referred to as "the real finance minister." These timeless "trade winds" are the fundamental civilizational reality of India's western coastline, and the main reason why so many of the world's most significant ancient entrepots arose in Malabar and the Konkan, early nerve centres of what we now call globalisation. Their fierce gusting predictability (albeit now increasingly disrupted) made it relatively easy throughout history to set sail on one side of the Arabian Sea, and get blown directly across the depths with your cargo.

That breathtakin...