The howling of the wind stopped. But I could hear silent tears the trees were shedding, long after the rains stopped and the winds took a breather. It was pitch dark outside and I tried to get back to sleep though my dreams were full of flying leaves and a war dance that the trees seemed to be doing around Mother earth.
The morning was a different story. I opened the windows and what I saw made me go silent and numb. I could get a clear view of the road from my bedroom window, as all the trees in the line of my vision were lying stark on the road. There were parts of ripped branches still left hanging from a couple of the odd trees that had survived the holocaust, and these branches reminded me of wounded soldiers in a battle, who would beg to be put out of their misery. There were hesitant sounds of birds, who came searching for their nests, and when they did not even find a trace of the tree let alone the nests, the cacophony of grief started. The stray sounds of motor vehicles broke the silence, while people slowly started coming out of their houses, trying to make sense of nature’s wrath. The sense of dismay, shock and helplessness was palpable. Life would never be the same again, without the breeze of the neem trees on my balcony, and the absence of the chirpy birds, who would fight with the squirrels for the morning crumbs. Coffee tasted bitter that morning.
The uprooting of giant trees defied logic. The gaping craters on the roads, ripping the concrete pavements bore testimony to the fact that the roots imprisoned underneath the concrete prison man built under the guise of civilisation and development are way too strong to be curtailed. Maybe the roots could no longer meander around under the earth in search of water, and desperate for survival, they started growing upwards? And too close to the surface, they could not withstand the onslaught of the fury of the slashing winds and just leaned over and fell? Though not like gentle giants, but like huge monsters, in a last attempt to perhaps let man know, that everything has a price: and sometimes, the price we pay is way, way too great for us to ever recover from the bargain.
I am writing this after a week of the onslaught of the cyclone. The view from the window is still clear, I still miss the familiar view of various hues of green leaves of the trees that shielded me from the view of the road. But I saw a new palm frond in one of the surviving tree today morning. My eyes welled up when I saw it, for some strange reason. It made me realise that while nature punishes, she also is very gentle and caring. She understands pain; and maybe this was her way of telling me not to lose hope?
The morning was a different story. I opened the windows and what I saw made me go silent and numb. I could get a clear view of the road from my bedroom window, as all the trees in the line of my vision were lying stark on the road. There were parts of ripped branches still left hanging from a couple of the odd trees that had survived the holocaust, and these branches reminded me of wounded soldiers in a battle, who would beg to be put out of their misery. There were hesitant sounds of birds, who came searching for their nests, and when they did not even find a trace of the tree let alone the nests, the cacophony of grief started. The stray sounds of motor vehicles broke the silence, while people slowly started coming out of their houses, trying to make sense of nature’s wrath. The sense of dismay, shock and helplessness was palpable. Life would never be the same again, without the breeze of the neem trees on my balcony, and the absence of the chirpy birds, who would fight with the squirrels for the morning crumbs. Coffee tasted bitter that morning.
The uprooting of giant trees defied logic. The gaping craters on the roads, ripping the concrete pavements bore testimony to the fact that the roots imprisoned underneath the concrete prison man built under the guise of civilisation and development are way too strong to be curtailed. Maybe the roots could no longer meander around under the earth in search of water, and desperate for survival, they started growing upwards? And too close to the surface, they could not withstand the onslaught of the fury of the slashing winds and just leaned over and fell? Though not like gentle giants, but like huge monsters, in a last attempt to perhaps let man know, that everything has a price: and sometimes, the price we pay is way, way too great for us to ever recover from the bargain.
I am writing this after a week of the onslaught of the cyclone. The view from the window is still clear, I still miss the familiar view of various hues of green leaves of the trees that shielded me from the view of the road. But I saw a new palm frond in one of the surviving tree today morning. My eyes welled up when I saw it, for some strange reason. It made me realise that while nature punishes, she also is very gentle and caring. She understands pain; and maybe this was her way of telling me not to lose hope?
