Insane storm...
There’s a violent storm wreaking havoc on Calcutta! Even now, it’s lashing against our house, threatening to uproot it from its very foundation, destructive impulses cemented by its success in uprooting many trees and shattering smaller establishments all over!
This is just a harbinger of the cyclone (Aila) that’s expected to strike our city this evening! It’s already terrible! We had shuttered all our (many) windows in our house. Still the sound of shattering glass had me running to the 2nd storey staircase, where a large window had come unhinged and had all the glass blown away from its frame. As I wrestled with the brute force of the winds to shut the window and prevent more damage, a large chunk of glass from the neighbouring window was ripped off and it went sailing to the ground shrieking! I was so lucky that it was blown outwards and didn’t fly in instead! This post wouldn’t have existed then.
The huge mango tree in our backyard toppled over and went crashing against the beautiful stone-walled house next door. Thankfully, no one was injured (in either scene). But it’s still a horrific sight. I don’t know how we are going to remove it-probably call in the fire-brigade or something. It is good that the servants’ bathroom in the corner of our yard and the neighbours’ garage both served to soften the blow/break the momentum of the falling tree.
We are in the midst of getting the house (parts of it) repainted and for this purpose a large make-shift ladder had been constructed out of bamboo rods and rope and this framework, spanning 3 storeys in height, was attached to one side of our house. The girl who does the sweeping and dusting for us warned that the ladder had come unattached and was swaying dangerously, posing a palpable peril! We rushed to the roof and with the help of our driver and another kind fellow, managed to tether the wayward structure again with ropes. It was a virtual tug of war between us and Nature’s forces and although we had our small victory now, she had her fun drenching us to the skin and obviously scaring us out of our wits. There was a very existent chance of any of us getting blown off the roof.
News channels report that 3 people have lost their lives already to this storm. That’s just a reported figure, another new channel reports the destruction of 6000 homes in one area, dams have broken in several places, trains services are disrupted, major roads blocked by falling trees. We will be subjected to heavy, turbulent storms for the next 48 hours.
Just days ago, we had had so much fun in a storm less annihilative than this one. It hadn’t uprooted our mango tree but all the mangoes had been knocked off. It had been so much fun, scampering around the muddy backyard in the hard pouring rain, scaling the neighbours garage and even climbing over the small dividing wall between our house to another neighbours garden, gathering up those fallen mangoes.
Its different today.
This is just a harbinger of the cyclone (Aila) that’s expected to strike our city this evening! It’s already terrible! We had shuttered all our (many) windows in our house. Still the sound of shattering glass had me running to the 2nd storey staircase, where a large window had come unhinged and had all the glass blown away from its frame. As I wrestled with the brute force of the winds to shut the window and prevent more damage, a large chunk of glass from the neighbouring window was ripped off and it went sailing to the ground shrieking! I was so lucky that it was blown outwards and didn’t fly in instead! This post wouldn’t have existed then.
The huge mango tree in our backyard toppled over and went crashing against the beautiful stone-walled house next door. Thankfully, no one was injured (in either scene). But it’s still a horrific sight. I don’t know how we are going to remove it-probably call in the fire-brigade or something. It is good that the servants’ bathroom in the corner of our yard and the neighbours’ garage both served to soften the blow/break the momentum of the falling tree.
We are in the midst of getting the house (parts of it) repainted and for this purpose a large make-shift ladder had been constructed out of bamboo rods and rope and this framework, spanning 3 storeys in height, was attached to one side of our house. The girl who does the sweeping and dusting for us warned that the ladder had come unattached and was swaying dangerously, posing a palpable peril! We rushed to the roof and with the help of our driver and another kind fellow, managed to tether the wayward structure again with ropes. It was a virtual tug of war between us and Nature’s forces and although we had our small victory now, she had her fun drenching us to the skin and obviously scaring us out of our wits. There was a very existent chance of any of us getting blown off the roof.
News channels report that 3 people have lost their lives already to this storm. That’s just a reported figure, another new channel reports the destruction of 6000 homes in one area, dams have broken in several places, trains services are disrupted, major roads blocked by falling trees. We will be subjected to heavy, turbulent storms for the next 48 hours.
Just days ago, we had had so much fun in a storm less annihilative than this one. It hadn’t uprooted our mango tree but all the mangoes had been knocked off. It had been so much fun, scampering around the muddy backyard in the hard pouring rain, scaling the neighbours garage and even climbing over the small dividing wall between our house to another neighbours garden, gathering up those fallen mangoes.
Its different today.