Monsoon ghost stories

Some ghost tales stem from moods and changes triggered by the monsoons. Shaped from the peculiarities of the rainy season, these horror stories take the form of urban legends and myths shared through verbal storytelling between friends, drinking circles, family and strangers who want to share a rush of adrenaline with warning. Here are two such monsoon ghost stories still in circulation as urban myths in Sri Lanka.

One life every monsoon: the story of Samudradevi’s spirit haunting Diyawanna 

The Diyawanna, where the parliament sits on serene waters, is a lake surrounded by a protected wetland and some little-known ruins of the Kotte kingdom. An urban legend tells the story of a haunting that takes place around Diyawanna every year when the monsoons flood the waterways, raising the water levels. The story says the ghost of Samudradevi, a Kotte-era princess who drowned in the Diyawanna, haunts its boundaries during the rainy season.

Samudradevi was the Kotte king’s daughter. She was married to the nobleman and hotheaded royal commander Veediyabandara. It was a troubling time for the Kotte kingdom, with the Portuguese invaders inching ever closer to the kingdom’s centre of power, making the seasoned warrior Veediyabandara one of the most important assets to the king. So much so that when Veediyabandara heard about a rumoured affair between his wife, Samudradevi and the Portuguese court officer Deigo de Silva, he didn’t hesitate to murder her. Historical lore says that enraged Veediyabandara took Samudradevi to the edge of Diyawanna Lake and pushed her in where the currents were known to be unforgiving. Veediyabandara evaded punishment and was eventually forgiven by the king for his services to the kingdom.

This is where historical details get woven into an urban myth. With no justice for her murder, Samudradevi’s spirit is said to wait along the borders of Diyawanna. When the monsoons flood the surrounding wetlands, expanding the borders of Diyawanna, her spirit can roam further with the waters, searching for a sacrificial soul. In Sri Lankan ghost lore, there is a shared concept of a recurring 'claim' of a living soul demanded by a restless spirit to appease itself for a time; a grim negotiation between the living and the dead when a haunting becomes cyclical, revisiting the same place year after year. Each 'claim' buys a temporary peace, holding the haunting at bay until the debt comes due again. The story goes that the claim sought by Samudradevi’s spirit was due every monsoon, and anywhere along the borders of Diyawanna was game. The urban myth claims that her favoured hunting spots are near the current Waters Edge lake border and the wetland west of the Diyawanna bridge, where Samudradevi is said to have drowned. It appears to be a story that was fed by the works of Diyawanna’s deceptive currents and whirlpools that strengthen during the monsoons, as well as crocodiles that hunt along the lake border and the surrounding wetlands. Before the area was tamed with public parks and markets, there would be a drowning or a disappearance now and then, resurfacing the story of Samudradevi’s haunting of the Diyawanna.

Monsoon Mohini: a warning to not let the monsoon in

There’s an urban legend connected to the spirit ‘Mohini’, the succubus ghost of desire and deception. Mohini legends drift through much of South Asia, taking different forms. The most common Mohini stories involve a beautiful woman appearing at three-way junctions late at night, to strike up conversations with lonely travellers and lure them to doom. Another version involves a beautiful woman in a white saree, carrying an infant; she would ask men travelling alone to hold her baby so she could fasten her loosening saree. If a man agrees to take the baby, Mohini would start walking away, forcing the startled man to attempt to return the child and follow her into the shadows. The monsoon Mohini story is another version; its warning is less apparent and is more entertaining than cautionary.

This urban legend warns men to never leave their doors open during monsoon thunderstorms. Mohini would visit, a beauty with her silhouette half-veiled, half-revealed in rain-drenched clothes, leaving just enough to tantalize the male imagination. She would ask for temporary shelter, till the rain lasts, not too long. According to the story, once let in, she’ll leave your senses undone and you’ll fade slowly in the fever of your own desire, consumed by a longing that drains both body and will. Like in most Mohini stories, the only escape here is also cunning; those who meet Mohini with calm intelligence, turning her tricks upon herself, might see another sunrise. But she is a creature of paradox and cunning, and to play her game is to wager your soul. So, the warning remains; don’t let the monsoon in.

These monsoon ghost stories often unfold around ponds, wells, and lonely stretches of road, or unguarded households where actual dangers could lurk or unfold from negligence. These stories served as cautionary tales that used fear as a useful, entertaining and effective way to warn of dangers.

Revering rain

Monsoon was once sacred; it was invited with ritual, and sent off with tribute. That was when our society was predominantly agrarian, and the role of rain was unmistakable; its place in the cycle of life was directly witnessed and understood. Now, past the schoolbook diagrams of the water cycle, it’s harder to see how the rains feed the food we order on Uber Eats. Our old reverence toward rain is fading. This is an attempt to re-remember it through the lore, myths and stories connected to rain.

Monsoon arrives, dissolving hierarchies with the same insistence that it dissolves thirst. When the monsoon hits, there is no difference between farmer and priest, believer and skeptic. Monsoons evoked a common longing for dry shelter, some warmth and any mercy. It also evoked hope for growth and a better harvest. These collective emotions of awe, hope, and longing for safety, and the direct results of the monsoons observed in nature, were what shaped most rain lore.

In Sri Lanka, the full moon of Poson, now celebrated by Buddhists marking Buddhism’s arrival in Sri Lanka, was once the great water festival celebrating fertility and abundance. In the lunar month between June and July, known as Jetthamüla in ancient Lanka, water sports were performed to awaken the sleeping cloud god Parjanya. Parjanya—Pajjunna to the Pali texts, Podona or Poson to the Sinhala tongue—was closely associated with the water festival, and the name remained as Buddhist philosophy was integrated into the island culture.  

Rain was closely associated with fertility, too. Naturally, the human body itself was used as a conduit to pray for fruitfulness and return. According to historian Charles Godakumbura, "they desired to appease the Rain-God so that he may return to them with the cycle of seasons. The gods of fertility are always pleased at the sight of behaviour which leads to their purpose, namely the increase of the human race together with the abundance of crops and increase of cattle and other livestock, and they would hardly approve too much moral restraint, particularly in matters of sex.”

In our early imaginings, rain was not a mere resource but divinity. The Naga, a symbol of water, was common in ancient ponds built to collect rainwater in clean conditions. The Naga embodies the mysterious balance between danger and nourishment of the rains. To honour the Naga was to acknowledge both fear and faith, that the same water that sustains and quenches can also drown and spread disease, unless managed. 

1872, Naga pond in Ceylon Ruins of Anuradhapura by Joseph Lawton

Bairava, the guardian god of wealth in Hindu faith, is worshipped in a ceremony which takes place in the middle of the dry tanks of Sri Lanka’s North-Central Province. Devotees stand in the dry beds of tanks, calling on Bairava to break the drought and bring on the rains to sustain crop wealth; it’s a ritual that reveals the subconscious connection between rain and abundance.

Even faiths that came later folded themselves into this ancient grammar of water. The story of St. Joseph Vaz, the Goan saint, remains one of the island’s most beloved tales, connecting divine power with rain. When King Vimaladharmasuriya invited the renowned miracle maker to pray for rain in drought-stricken Kandy, Vaz requested a public altar. The story accounts that as he prayed, raindrops started to fall, everywhere but upon the altar where he stood, initiating the late monsoon. This local legacy probably got interwoven with the lore of St. Joseph, who is prayed to receive rain; because even today, it is customary to keep a statue of St. Joseph under an umbrella during outdoor weddings and ceremonies, as a plea to shelter from rain.

St. Joseph statue placed under an umbrella with a prayer to hold back major rains during a wedding.

In villages across the island, echoes of more rain lore persist. Gammadu, Panmadu and Kohomba Kankariya are all linked to monsoons and seeking protection from floods and diseases that follow major rains. Even the performance of ritualistic village games such as Porapol gasima and Ankeliya, and some elements of folk play known as Sokari, are also connected to rain. Farmers in Kataragama cook through the night on the threshing floor to honour the role of rain gods in a good harvest; villagers in Kotmale offer prayers to Meghavarana, the lord of clouds. From the bathing of the sacred Bo trees, the Esala Perahera, the exposition of the Tooth Relic, to aspects of Pongal celebration, stories around rain often took the form of a covenant between human life and natural order. Across religions, the monsoon is a great equalizer, undoing separations, reminding us of the smallness that binds all life.

Perhaps this is why rain rituals have survived every empire and every reform. They spring from the same elemental recognition: our link with rain and survival is shared. History reminds us that we once saw rain not merely as weather but as an essential of life to life. And perhaps we still can, if we pause to notice the quiet miracles it performs, even in our cities. The rains have always been our equalizer, our reminder that everything alive depends on water, for better or for worse.

The cross wears stories

Symbols don’t just represent concepts; they host stories.

Take the swastika. In one story, it was auspicious, spiritual, ancient, and sacred. In another, it was contempt, nationalism and genocide. The symbolic drift of the swastika has always impressed me. For all my fellow designers, it’s a reminder of the entropy of symbols.

Similar shape. Different stories. 

That’s the semiotic power of a symbol. They can host just about any story, no matter its complexity or abstract concept. It’s a reason why nations, religions, and ideologies are usually represented by symbols. But people need to believe in them for them to work. They’re arbitrary symbols we trust. So the success rate isn’t very high. In other words, it requires more understanding. The audience must learn the meaning. Symbolic images are less intuitive, and their meaning usually drifts or decays over time. 

What do you see when the image stays the same, but the story moves?

Iconic signs, on the other hand, are easy to recognize and decode. A street sign showing kids crossing is iconic. Iconic signs and images look like what they mean. A lot of businesses end up using iconic logos because they are polysemic. Basic enough to recognize, yet abstract enough to still have room to direct meaning.

A single sign or image can have multiple meanings.

It’s important to remember that signs hold meaning. They are not the story, so their meaning changes. Who gets to change them and when depends on the audience. In the art world, it's called stealing; in finance, it's called fraud; on the internet, it's called a meme. 

Memes are a wild hybrid when it comes to signs. Did you know that a meme can be iconic, indexical, and symbolic, all at once? They reformat the semiotic meaning of an image. So they have the abstraction of a symbol, the clarity of an icon, and the context of an indexical image. This layered meaning gives them scope to speak to niche audiences, but it also makes them volatile when viewed outside their cultural frame.

They’re signs in motion. 

So what does the girl’s cross mean? It depends. Whose meaning are we decoding... Like a tattoo worn for oneself. She’s anchoring her identity. But to the viewer, to those who noticed the cross, it might signify something entirely different. Faith. Rebellion. Irony. Seduction. Purity. Contradiction. The cross becomes a mirror, reflecting the stories we bring to it. When paired with a tight '90s mini dress, the sign becomes even more volatile.

It may trigger a memory. A bad feeling? 

Visual communication is never singular. It’s a body of interpretations. Fluid. Overlapping. Sometimes contradictory. Every gaze reads a different story. And yet, somehow, we agree. Not always. Not entirely. But enough to build systems, signs, and shared rhythms. We agree, sometimes, on some things. But beneath that agreement is a quiet chaos. A swarm of captions and a multitude of emotions. Think of it like a dancefloor: each person moving to their own beat, every story dancing in its own rhythm. And yet, when enough people sync up, a consensus emerges. 

Some of us live in that negotiation.

We jump between stories, code-switching between meanings. That's the work of a commercial storyteller. To listen for rhythm. To find coherence in contradiction. That’s the wonder of a story and the chaos it carries.

So yes, the girl wears a cross. But the cross wears stories. And we, the viewers, wear our own.

Food for thought.