In the center of the cyclone!

31st Dec 2011, Pondicherry

It's sunny now. The hub and honking of traffic in the lane below which normally sounds jarring is almost musical. Strange, what the experience of a cyclone can do to you. My first. Lots of firsts in Pondicherry - I’m not complaining!

Had I known what a raging cyclone can do to a city, a community, what would have I done? Run away to a safer clime? Kept some extra loaves of bread more likely. Yesterday was the only night when my sleep was swept away by the 140 km/hr strong winds. What a sound sirji! Metal roof sheets flying like wings of an angry, invisible bird, falling like unmusical threats on an already tormented night. It’s the sound… swooooooosh says the wind… I will be heard! The darkness deepens her baritone. I manage to grope for the candle and find matches. Human life stands exposed and vulnerable in the larger fabric of nature. What swirls in my heart, my mind? Much, and yet nothing… I send my brother a message while my mobile still has some charge, he doesn’t panic usually, so it’s okay. I send him my address and local number for ready reference, and a brief ‘there’s a cyclone’. The city guy will need to ask what exactly that means now that his sister is in the thick of the storm.

Late morning, I manage to hold open the door to my terrace to capture a few shot of the fury. I catch a glimpse of the muddy, restless, threatening ocean now very visible through the torn trees that used to the royally line the track in front of the house. The ocean rages before me and rain falls from above, yet there’s not a drop to drink… the damage is done. I’m grateful the walls are holding out, for a change I thank civilization and its gift of strong buildings. Tsunami was no more a geographical terror that happens to others. My mobile still has some charge left, I call up my sister who is visiting our parents with her two kids. Quite practically I tell her the situation and then sms my bank account numbers, in case a Tsunami decides to visit, this data may come in handy! She takes time to assimilate…

With practical details out of the way, I see it for what it is  - an intense storm.  To the free mind it’s a song… you almost enjoy the drama. A turn of the year event to reckon with! Agreed, it is dangerous, but the thrill, the raw force, the sheer adventure, the drama of the once in a life time show grips me. I behave like a child who’s fascinated by it all unaware and unmindful of the potential ruin. The sheer energy awes me. So when the fury is bearable, I dance in the storm!

It’s when I walk the streets in the evening that the magnitude hits. Getting out of the house is the first hurdle, with the trees broken and fallen everywhere, somehow we manage to clear some so the gate can be opened. In the street I face the monkey-challenge - over the rubble, the uprooted trees, the net of thorns, the fallen electric poles, the badgered buildings, the muddy puddles, the ravaged roads, the light rain yet falling… I have my camera and decide to take a brief tour before the rains become heavy and the darkness dares the electricity-less city. Ravaged, every road is a blind end. Fallen trees. Every, fallen trees. Their roots revealed to the air, their white entrails bare and broken, their branches naked and leafless. They’ve taken the biggest brunt. It saddens me deeply… The ocean is calmer now but muddy and angry yet. The beautiful bamboo canopies lining the beach are scattered as remnants of sunnier days. Boulders I would not be able to lift with both hands have been tossed to the center of the beach road. The city’s famous Promenade is classic picture of ruin in the falling darkness.



I try to make a beeline for the nearby shops, hoping something is open. Only the bakery has half a shutter amidst the row of closed shops. How do you get there with the fallen tree right in front and the unhappy puddles? I choose to brave the torn tree rather than wade a puddle of muddy water. Inside the tiny shop is a riot! A claustrophobic crowd in the dark shop, demanding, grabbing whatever it can lay its hands on. Bottled water, milk, bread, biscuits… I manage to get a bottle of water, and some cake (substituting bread!). Then I hurry back before darkness, the rubble, the rain and the ruin makes it impossible.



We often consider such things unnatural and unlikely. I’d never dreamt I’d ever be right in the middle of a cyclone! We never fully realize we are going to die one day. These odd events are jolting reminders, not the slow pinch of a deadly disease. We are particular about the shades of our curtain, the softness of our carpets, the spotlessness of the walls, a wind sweeps and you feel lucky that the walls and roof are left. Reminders are there, they take different forms and touch our lives in different ways. Perhaps going through one we become wider, see the essential, look at ourselves as another species among species on a living planet. Sometimes we need cyclonic winds to shake off our blinkers and get the bigger picture. So, what we need to express is gratitude for it all, for being a part and seeing the whole. Thank you life, thank you Nature.

 

The sun rose the morning after...