Reflections From A Storm

It was a lovely Sunday afternoon. I was at home, secure in my knowledge that the rain carrying clouds are of no concern to me. Yes, yes, yes – I know, arrogance, and colossal arrogance at that. Well, it so happens that those are the very words, almost – of those same rain clouds. They, as the passed on top, bethought themselves – what do we have here? An arrogant human. So, lets us attend to his arrogance, shall we. Cant have this arrogance.

Now I have a habit of leaving doors and windows wide open. It lets in light, and makes the home airy you see. And, I do have floor to ceiling windows in my bedroom, and large, large windows in all other rooms. And, the icing on the cake, my home has  North facing windows. To top it all, the wind has never blown North to South in all my 19+ months of stay here. So, I was relaxed, and carefree as the rain started pelting – and I mean pelting! And there I sat, wide open doors and windows, in a pelting rain, enjoying the beauty of the elements and the rain – in a top floor flat.

The upshot of this lovely combination of open doors / windows in an opportune top floor flat with North-South opening Windows n Doors  is that The Clouds and The Rain, seeing my arrogance, called up elder brother Mr. Wind for a smallish conference. The two kid brothers – Cloud n Rain – requested Mr Wind to blow – yes, you got it! North to South. And, with a satisfied smile, they also suggested that Mr Wind also blow nice n  hard with a show of strength. Mr Wind, on learning of my colossal arrogance, happily and readily agreed to give me a small reminder  of the power of the elements. And me, sitting there, blissfully unaware, carefree that I was in a concrete roofed modern apartment, keeping wide open windows in stormy weather,  in a place where the same Wind never ever has blown in North-South direction. The only precaution – move all electronics and other perishables a bit away from the open doors n windows.

And then, mother nature’s first children, M/s Wind, Rain n Clouds set about reminding me that boss, you may  be human, in the 21^st century – specifically 2018, with your oh-so-modern developments and what-nots, secure in your self styled genius – but you are just a doll made of soil. The Wind shifted- yes, North – South, aligned perfectly against my {remember – open, wide open} French Windows n Doors. And increased in strength for several notches.

Before I could say Abracadabra, my kitchen door slammed open with full force, and the entire house was a lake. A lake on the top floor of our “modern” apartment that we so gloatingly parade as signs of modernity.  Try as I might, I could not close the pinned door, such was the force. And, by the time I ran to close the French Windows, every single appliance soaking wet, and every single mattress, bedcover, sheets drenched. Thankfully the pillows survived. That’s all it took: 2 – 3 minutes of exposure to the power of nature to reduce all of mankinds so-called development into worthless soaking wet items, as the power was also cut.

As I stood there, looking at the chaos that just 2 minutes of nature had caused in a modern apartment, on the top floor at that, I couldn’t help but wonder at the smallness of humanity, the incomparable greatness of mother nature, and how helpless humanity is in front of it. All of our highly vaunted creations, and it took just a little rain to blow it all away. Just 2 minutes of rain, that is it. And yet, we try to tame nature, and turn it to our advantage, instead of trying to work with it. It brought home to me the fragility of mankind’s science, and the incomparable strength of Mother Nature. And I couldn’t but wonder at the fragility of the existence and base of our civilization and its complete exposure to the vagaries of nature, even in the middle of a metropolis.