A thunderstorm

 A terrible spell of thunderstorm and rain struck on the evening of May 29. Despite all the sandy howls preceding the raindrops it’s a blessing against the heated furnace. These pre-monsoon showers save us from getting baked like desert sands. Sometimes they are soothing, breezy with a fine drizzle’s courteous verve; almost like mauve mist at dusk. Other times they come blindly spiraling, unleashing storms of sand, hail and rain. This time it was a thunderstorm. The windstorm broke many trees and nests. But didn’t it scatter the seeds far and wide? In the same way, the adversities that we face in life spread the seeds of our potential on a broader platform. And the new saplings of fresher traits, skills and attitude add to our persona and we emerge a new model of ourselves.

Next morning the garden and the yard present a thoroughly beaten shape under the weather’s robust exhortation. What else is life if not about again putting your house in order once the storms fuelled by larger forces shuffle, ruffle and shake your hair like a big neighborhood bully roughening up a little coy boy?

The marigolds are ok more or less. They are in shade and being under the shadows of bigger trees has its advantages. They may feel jaded about bigger trees bossing over them. But being big has its disadvantages also. You are front in the line of assault by still bigger forces. A few bricks, put on the garden wall, fell upon the marigolds. That’s incidental, a chance fall in a particular plant’s fate. They don’t complain. The crushed plant is showing signs of recovery.

The babbler couple’s nest-making assignment is stalled. It was three-quarter complete. But I think they will have to redo it. And surely they will. They are too absorbed in their work to complain. Aloe vera is mauled. Its pot fell and broke. The badly wounded plant gets a ground hold now. Mother earth herself is its new pot now where it can spread its roots to the depths it wants. It’s injured and it will take some time to recover but when it will, there will be open earth for it to bloom. Adversities, sufferings and pain usually carry the prospects of a bigger stage in their wake.

Probably the hibiscus under the parijat in a corner envied the other one basking in full glory under open skies. The former (red-flowered) must have nurtured a complex against the latter (the white-flowered one). The white-flowered hibiscus grew nicely and quickly added bulk to its canopy. The other one had limited options that gave it a bit less than moderate growth. Now the storm has given a severe bashing to the fat one. It has fallen and it needs surgery to get its overgrown mass pruned to give it a chance of life and to make it stand again. So maybe our apparent limitations and disadvantages save us from storms, like this red-flowered one is almost unscathed as if there has been no storm at all.

Flower pots tumbled, a few breaking and others getting cracks as bricks fell from the top of the garden wall. All this exposed little colonies of slugs that were enjoying their soft, silky solitude in their damp hideouts. They are fat leech-like snails, a kind of shell-less snail. Some are squashed to pulp and juice. A wailing refrain never helps during the times of such tragedies. With sadly pervasive air, though with apparent lamenting rectitude, the others are very slowly crawling back to their preferred damp, hidden corners and crevices. A slug must be carrying some repugnant slime to deter the birds from having a burger or cream-roll because I have seen many of them happily going at their snail pace in broad daylight, right in the middle of the yard and hardly any birdie guy interested in them. Well, they are regrouping now. The little world in the vandalized yard and the small garden is also trying to get back to shape.

That’s what life is. We just try to regroup and retake our shapes after being shaken by storms. It cannot just be only about manifold rhythmic recitals, dolefully dewy delights and starry sights. There will surely be times when the circumstances beyond our control, fuelling themselves with a pernicious passion, will shake-break ruffle-shuffle tear-shear our established order. Be sure that they will do this with immaculate cynicism. Then dear readers it becomes our duty to keep the holy edifice of our values and principles intact and don’t allow these to seep out of us along with our broken spirits. You have to walk through the debris in the direction of that mystically mingling mist lurking over the horizon. You may be just a silent shadow of your illustriously kicking past but you are duty-bound to keep travelling and allow things to get stabilized and then you can try to take a firm grip on your situation.