Monsoon...?

When I woke up this morning, it was gray and drizzly. It's rained exactly twice since we've been here, neither time for very long.

The monsoon has already started in Kerala, and is said to be working its way north. Every late afternoon for the past week, dark clouds have marched ominously out of the south in neat little regiments, like the advance guard of an army. It's been getting more humid daily, and is now about on par with Thailand.

One of the headlines in the paper this morning was that the pied-crested cuckoo, which allegedly travels with the rains, has been sighted in the city.

I asked our driver whether this drizzle was the start of the monsoon.
He looked at me like I was an idiot.
"We'll have to wait a few days and see if it keeps raining."

I was so let down to learn there was such a thing as "pre-monsoon rains." What's a monsoon if not rain? How can there be pre-rain rain? I was given to believe, through those same Indian novels I used to read that so thoroughly misled me about other aspects of life in Bombay, that the monsoon started unambiguously with a black sky and two-headed calves being born (etc). It starts not with a bang but a drizzle?

Coming home, I noticed that the sea, which is normally so oily and placid that one forgets it's the ocean, was doing some really dramatic things, like breaking over the sea wall and spraying onto the road. Then, tonight -- thunder! -- and heavy rain. I rushed out onto the patio to enjoy the smell of ozone...
...and was almost physically propelled back against the wall by the smell of rotting garbage. Yes, it hasn't rained in months. I don't even want to think about what's being washed out of the sky.

But -- is this the monsoon?