When the Rain Changed Direction

For the last few days, it had been raining almost every afternoon.

While I was in the library, I used to notice that most of the rain was coming from the west. The wind drived the rain in same direction, caused the rain water was seeping the western windows.

But today, now, I felt something different.

The rain was no longer arriving from the west. The wind was blowing from the south, and the spray of rain started touching the parts of a nearby house that had stayed dry until then.

It was a small shifting, one that could easily overlooked if one was busy. And yet these, the very details I always noticed.

Growing up in a village, we didn't rely on weather reports to understand changing the seasons; we learned also from the nature around us. The direction of the wind, the scent of wet soil, the clouds in the evening sky and the sounds of frogs after sunset; these were our weather forecasts.

As I watched the rain today, I wondered whether this was the sign of the monsoon finally arriving in our area? Perhaps the southwest monsoon winds have begun to influence our region. I am not an expert, so I cannot say it in confident. But the change in the wind felt like the beginning of something.

Every year, the monsoon announces its arrival in its own unique way. Sometimes, it arrives as dark clouds gather over fields and rivers. Sometimes, its comes through the sudden coolness after a humid day. And in other times it open itself simply by changing of rain's direction.

Perhaps that is exactly what I witnessed today.

The calendar may tell us when the monsoon is expected, but nature often gives us its own signals long before the weather forecast.

And today, in the toucu of southern breeze, I felt one of those signals.