Skip to main content

Roaring Rain

My village river in spate


The teak that stood on a side of my house came down yesterday. It had to be felled before the cyclonic winds brought it down on our house. A tree that had stood there for some three decades lay flat on the ground in less than an hour. The lithe man who brought it down branch by branch is 74 years old, I am told. He did look old, though 74 might be hyperbole. He threw a rope over a tall branch of the teak with the help of a weight attached to the end of the rope and once the rope was tied securely on to the branch, the man climbed it up like a monkey. He was right on top in the wink of an eye.

The teak being felled
Winds are bringing a lot of trees down in Kerala these days. Every day we hear reports about the ravages of winds. Electric power fails because trees fall on the lines. The monsoon has just started. Monsoon in Kerala means incessant rains and constant power failures.

When I was a young boy, Monsoon in Kerala had similar incessant rains. But we went to school walking long distances in spite of such rains. There were no cyclones in those days. Where did the cyclones join the monsoon here? Climate change is the answer. “Nature writes back,” as environment magazine Down to Earth’s [DTE] latest cover says. 


The monsoon I knew as a boy didn’t carry “a malignant purpose in a nun’s eyes,” as poet Jayanta Mahapatra puts it in his poem ‘A Rain of Rites’ reproduced in DTE. The allegorical nun was benignant in the old world of my childhood. I remember the patter of raindrops on leaves that accompanied me as I walked more than 4 kilometres to school every morning, rain or no rain, and back in the evening the same way. And Kerala did have a lot of rains in those days, more than now. Yet our parents had no reason to worry about our safety.

Not so today. The district collectors declare holiday for educational institutions when the monsoon becomes a Medusa in fury. The rivers in the village have lost their melody and have become menacing monsters carrying plastic waste of all hues and shapes. And occasional branches of trees too, for a change.

The woodpeckers vanished long ago from the trees. Where have all the nestlings gone? There isn’t even a butterfly left to which I can sing along with Danyel Gerard: “Butterfly, my Butterfly / now I know you must be free / Butterfly, don’t flutter by / Stay a little while with me.”

They have fluttered by, the butterflies. The dragonflies too. Where have all the birds disappeared? Human greed dressed up as development has driven them all away. And now nature is “writing back.”

Kerala received 620% more rains already this monsoon, says my Malayalam newspaper this morning. When it rains, we get deluges. Otherwise, we have droughts. Nature is writing back vindictively.

If only we treaded with gentler steps, building not over nature, but alongside her… Perhaps the skies would breathe easier, the winds would wander in peace, and the rains wouldn’t be furies but blessings. Can’t we have progress that doesn’t roar but whispers, progress that’s green and wise? 


PS. This post is part of #BlogchatterBlogHop

 

Comments

  1. A season for extremes, be it politics or weather!

    ReplyDelete
  2. The IMD has forecast above-average rainfall across the nation this monsoon. Bengaluru and coastal Karnataka too has been getting heavy rains. The sky is bit clear today after many days.
    Tree fall is very common here as well. One sad aspect is that every year some people lose lives after trees fall on their car or autorickshaw. That's quite scary.
    Generally weather patterns have gone awry all across the world. Difficult to predict anything.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Indeed it is a global phenomenon. Matters are made worse with poor urban planning, illegal constructions, and levelling of hills and lakes.

      Delete
  3. Hari Om
    Nature is not one to be stopped when her ire is up. YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
  4. Weather and its vagaries and its fury apart, I was elevated and enwarmed by your portrayal of the graceful and lithe young man, the village woodcutter and his art, which introduces your blog. The rope and also the axe, his partners, at-hand... Yes. The Nature does write back... A boomerang effect. Humans have to become wiser, to listen to the cry of the Planet, being denuded and degreened.. thanks to the greed of the rational animals. Gods cannot lift the curse. Only humans can...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That man was doing this job from his youth onwards. He's an expert now. à´¨ിà´¤്à´¯ാà´­്à´¯ാà´¸ി ആനയെ à´Žà´Ÿുà´•്à´•ും.
      I was quite surprised, however, by his way of doing it at his age.

      Delete
  5. It all goes together, doesn't it? The world moans under the pressure of us, but rather than trying to fix things, we double down.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We seem so incapable of learning the essential lessons.

      Delete
  6. Domestic violence is a violation of human dignity and personal safety. No one should suffer in silence. With strong legal protection available under Indian law, every victim has the right to safety, justice, and a life free from abuse. Advocate Rani stands with you in this fight — offering legal clarity, court representation, and the strength to reclaim your voice. If you or someone you know is facing domestic violence, don’t wait. Visit https://advocaterani.com and take the first step toward legal protection and peace of mind.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Joys of Onam and a reflection

Suppose that the whole universe were to be saved and made perfect and happy forever on just one condition: one single soul must suffer, alone, eternally. Would this be acceptable? Philosopher William James asked that in his 1891 book, The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life . Please think about it once again and answer the question for yourself. You, as well as others, are going to live a life without a tinge of sorrow. Joyful existence. Life in Paradise. The only condition is that one person will take up all the sorrows of the universe on him-/herself and suffer – alone, eternally. What do you say? James’s answer is a firm no . “Not even a god would be justified in setting up such a scheme,” James asserted, knowing too well how the Bible justified a positive answer to his question. “It is expedient that one man should die for the people, so that the nation can be saved” [John 11:50]. Jesus was that one man in the Biblical vision of redemption. I was reading a Malayalam period...

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

India in Modi-Trap

That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. Illustration by Gemini AI A friend forwarded a WhatsApp message written by K Sahadevan, Malayalam writer and social activist. The central theme is a concern for science education and research in India. The writer bemoans the fact that in India science is in a prison conjured up by Narendra Modi. The message shocked me. I hadn’t been aware of many things mentioned therein. Modi is making use of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Centre for Study and Research in Indology for his nefarious purposes projected as efforts to “preserve and promote classical Indian knowledge systems [IKS]” which include Sanskrit, Ayurveda, Jyotisha (astrology), literature, philosophy, and ancient sciences and technology. The objective is to integrate science with spirituality and cultural values. That’s like harnessing a telescope to a Vedic chant and expecting the stars to spin closer. The IKS curricula have made umpteen r...

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...