Nature's fury

We know her as Mother Nature. But when she decides to show her furious side, there is nothing humans can do but wait for her to calm down.


Lately, I have been reading the news reports about the floods in Australia. Truly heartbreaking stories of lives lost. One such story is of Jordan Rice, a 13 year old boy who asked a rescuer to save his little brother Blake before himself. Jordan Rice and his mother Donna were swept away by the flood waters and drowned before they could be rescued. Jordan's father who survived, mentioned later that Jordan could not swim and was terrified of water. Yet, when it came to making a choice, his love for his brother triumphed over his fear and ended up with him making the ultimate sacrifice.


Nature has wreaked havoc in so many places and in so many forms. Be it earthquakes, floods, tornadoes, volcanoes, tsunamis, avalanches or blizzards, when Nature gets furious, there is always immeasurable loss and destruction.


I remember when Mumbai was flooded in July 2005. I woke up one morning and as is habit switched on my laptop to read the day's news while sipping on my morning tea. To my surprise, all the Indian newspapers were filled with pictures and pictures of Mumbai being submerged in water. I mentioned to my husband...looks like it really rained heavily in Mumbai...I am going to call and find out if everyone is okay. But nothing could have prepared me for what I was to hear when I made that call. It had rained so heavily that the entire city of Mumbai had been flooded. Dad had not been able to come back home and so had stayed the night at his office. But it was Mom's story that gave me goose bumps. My Mom, a kindergarten teacher, had spent the entire night in her school bus filled with kindergarten students. The school bus had been submerged in water and there was no way for it to move anywhere...it was basically at a standstill. As the night set in and the water kept rising, my mom says she did not think any of them would make it to the next morning. There was no means to be rescued at that point because there was too much water everywhere. There was also no way of informing the parents of the students in the bus. So the parents basically spent the entire night not knowing where their children were. I cannot imagine being that mom who has to spend the night not knowing where her six year old is. Next morning, as the water started to slowly settle down, my mom and all the children were able to get out of the bus with the help of random strangers. There were countless lives lost in Mumbai that day. But the rains had failed to dampen the spirit of the people of Mumbai where strangers were on the road helping each other.


My own experiences with natural disasters are only the few earthquake tremors I felt while living in California. But at that moment, the fear that runs through your body and mind is paralyzing. The fact remains that if a natural disaster is happening, there is nothing one can do to stop it...that feeling of helplessness is downright scary.


Signing off remembering with sadness all those who lost their lives to natural disasters and this quote by Margaret Laurence


'Know that although in the eternal scheme of things you are small, you are also unique and irreplaceable, as are all your fellow humans everywhere in the world.'