When it rains, it rains like mad. So true it is of the monsoon this time. The "orange alert" is the lowest common denominator currently, while the "red alert" is not exactly uncommon these days. In a way, it is nature's fury because in the north, two monsoon rich winds collaborated and collapsed together to create havoc as in the Kedarnath valley tragedy of the year 2013.
In other words, the monsoon madness of the title of our blog does not have any romantic associations right now. Actually, the monsoon mystique is simply gorgeous. The drizzle of the rain, the slight chill in the air, a warm shawl gently snuggling against the shoulders, great music, superb coffee and a book, with the small little garden coming alive with a riot of green and the fragrance of superb flowers, not to mention the birds' calls when the drizzle stops intermittently, and the pet beside dozing off with soft snores, well, if there is heaven on earth, this is it!
The Monsoon 2023, however, is not this dreamy. It is nightmarish as the landslide wiping out an entire hamlet proves. Much worse was the tragic story of a baby girl hardly six months old, yet again near Mumbai.
The Thane-Kalyan-Dombivali area was literally thrashed by the monsoon. The casualty was the local traffic. The water- clogged railway tracks brought the 'lifeline' of Mumbai to a grinding halt. There were local trains after local trains lining up on the tracks.
It was clear thus that the rail traffic would take ages to restore, back to normalcy. So like very many other passengers, this trio, the six months old ill baby, her mother and her grandpa had no other option but to walk along the tracks. Near the swollen nullah, the track was narrow beyond belief. So the mother slipped. The grandfather pulled her up. As she found it extremely difficult to walk along the narrow track, the baby girl was handed over to her grandpa from whose arms, she slipped, fell in to the overflowing, roaring nullah, and was washed away! No trace so far despite the frantic search!
What a heart-wrenching story! Poor soul! What a horrific end of a very young life! May be, she had a fever, and hence was a little sleepy. She would never open those tiny eyes again. How unbearable it must be for the mother and the grandfather! The very imagination boggles in the face of such grief, especially because there is no closure for them as the body was never found.
Extremely tragic tale it is, like that of the victims who were washed away in the Savitri river bridge collapse near Mahad a few years ago. Many vehicles, including state transport buses, just vanished in to the fierce flood then!
Such a monsoon is real mad. Nowhere is life safe, not in the rural area by the hillside, nor in the burgeoning metros! Wish the rain goes away from the human habitats, and concentrates only in the fields, and the catchment areas of dams!
Pratima@ To quote Bob Neuwerth,
"The wind turns like a dagger
The rain falls like a hammer
The sky has grown dark
The weather crashes down
What's lost cannot be found
The night is closing
The atmosphere is lethal
And we fear all evil!
The ocean rolls like thunder
The tempest pulls us under
The dogs are howling
As broken structures rust
False idols turn to dust
All lies in ashes"
And all appears too late, quite late!
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