Dehradun, July 20 -- Bruce Skillicorn

Landour's legendary lightning strikes stopped only after the TV Tower came up in the 1960s. This place, more than others, has been prone to bolts from the blue. As my friend of old, Jayanta Sarkar recalls: 'Our Landour house, just next to St Paul's Church, was hit by chain lightning, two or more flashes repeated without intermission. Our ridge came alive with static at the approach of a summer storm, the trees took the thunderbolts at least five times and left our windowpanes rattling.'

This phenomenon is not new. In March 1838 Fanny Parks wrote: 'Forked lightning was superb, the thunder resounded from hill to hill and for two hours the storm raged.'

Our pioneers were as hard as our oak trees. Ther...