Southwest Monsoon Season Official

Poets have spent millennia trying to capture it. For lovers, it is an excuse to share an umbrella. For children, it is paper boats in puddles. For the movie industry, Bollywood has built entire blockbusters around the metaphor of rain as liberation. It washes away the grime of the dry season—both literal and metaphorical. As the planet warms, the monsoon is changing. It is becoming more violent, more unpredictable, yet more essential than ever. The "normal" monsoon of our grandparents' time is evolving.

For nearly half the year, the Indian subcontinent bakes under a relentless sun. Rivers shrink to trickles, the earth cracks into a mosaic of dry clay, and a shimmering haze of heat hangs over the plains. Then, usually around the first week of June, a shift in the wind changes everything. southwest monsoon season

When the monsoon comes, the subcontinent remembers how to breathe again. Poets have spent millennia trying to capture it