Hail Nature!

 

Hail Nature!

No one can assuage the tantrums of Nature. Recently, a hailstorm wreaked havoc in a small valley surrounded by a multitude of hill ranges. That valley happens to be my home town too.

The day started as a bright Sunday in the middle of summer. I had gone to attend a function with the AC full on in my car. Within half an hour of returning home in the afternoon, the day suddenly changed its mood. I thanked God that I was already home. 

Wind howled from all sides. The pine trees in our compound swayed wildly in the force of the wind and dashed against the windows of our house. Thunderclaps and lightning streaks in the sky completed the horrifying picture. I usually love the rain and commune with it but this time it invoked fear and respect.

Amidst the howling winds and the torrential downpour, suddenly the clouds seemed to be pelting a million stones on earth. The sky must have opened its doors and poured down all its anger on us. When I got a chance to peek out from the window, our compound was completely white in colour. Ours is a tropical place and we hardly ever see any snow even in the depths of winter. This was not snow but hailstones which were the size of fists. Small circular stones had congregated into the fist sized stones. I gaped in horror.

Never had I seen such big hailstones and it went on for quite some time. Our house is a concrete three-storeyed building with a roofed terrace on the top floor. Suddenly a part of the roof was blown off by the angry winds and rain poured down inside the house like a river from heaven.

I stood helplessly watching the havoc it wreaked inside my house. When the storm finally abated, it was complete devastation. I am a gardener in my free time and the plants and trees in our compound is the fruit of years of labour. The trees were threadbare, myriad flowers of different hues were strewn all over the ground as if a whimsical person had deliberately torn them from their stalks and crushed them into tiny pieces. It was a painful sight. The whole compound was a collage of red and green and all the remaining colours from the leaves and the flowers.

Small birds from the nests in the trees lay dead on the ground. I had been observing a bird’s family for the last one week. Just outside my kitchen window, on the yellow hibiscus shrub, a bird had built its nest and had been sitting on its eggs to hatch them. She had been there continuously without going anywhere the whole time. Every morning, I used to look for her and it was a very heart-warming sight. After the storm, I looked for her but she was gone. I literally wept. When I went outside the house to see the damage, the poor bird lay dead and her nest with the eggs also lay all torn and broken. That was the most painful sight!

So many small trees were uprooted. All flowers were completely destroyed. The pomegranate and grapefruit trees which had started bearing fruits were all bare and the fruits were on the ground.

But my loss is nothing compared to the havoc caused to the neighbourhood. The tin roofs of the neighbouring houses were like sieve and the houses were not in a condition to live in. The rain continued, though without the hailstones and I could not imagine how people were going to endure the next few days before Government steps in to help.

I learnt a hard lesson this time…that we should not mess with Nature anymore. I think we have done too much by cutting down trees, burning plastic and what not! The change in the climate is very evident now. We should start acting before it is too late.

Without earth, where will we be? Let’s heed to nature’s warning while there is still time.

Memchoubi Phanjoubam