A 7.8 Earthquake, a Struggling Monsoon, and Why Nothing Happens Without a Reason
June 2026, Thane. Outside, the heat is sitting at 42 degrees. The fan is doing nothing useful. The sky has that white, washed-out look it gets just before the monsoon decides to show up... or not. This morning, news broke of a 7.8 magnitude earthquake off Mindanao in the southern Philippines. At least sixteen people confirmed dead, buildings reduced to rubble in General Santos City, a one-metre tsunami washing into coastal villages. By evening the death toll was still climbing. A tragedy, clearly. The kind of event you read about, feel the weight of for a moment, then scroll past. But here is the thing about being curious. You do not scroll past. You sit with it. You look at it from another angle, and then another, until something unexpected opens up. The question that nagged at me this morning was a strange one: could this earthquake, happening thousands of kilometres away in the Pacific, somehow touch the monsoon that most of urban India is anxiously waiting for? The short answer is...