One thing that truly scares me is the sizzling noise of the wind. Years back, my mom coincidentally planted 4 Ashoka trees the same day I started my school. Since we started a new phase of life together, in my tiny mind, I treated them as friends. Every day I would compare my height with them to ensure we are growing together. For couple of months, our heights were comparable, later they outgrew me by leaps and bounds.
During extremely windy days, when the trees would sway, I used to feel scared that they might get hurt. Then one day, one of them actually broke. I was sad and frightened. The tree grew up again but my fear of trees swaying in the wind did not reduce. The worst is tree swaying like a pendulum - tilting almost to the ground due to the force of the wind and then bouncing back to its original position. Couple of times and you have a fallen tree and most likely an electricity outage. Though Obelix was my favorite character in "Asterix and Obelix", I used to feel for Dogmatix when he howled over fallen trees.
In fact, the sound of wind brings me back various moments of fear I had experienced in the past. Once I bravely sat down alone on a windy night to watch Agatha Christie movie dealing with soul, spirit and mediums. Though I was brave enough to sit through the movie, I was scared to go to bed. I could not catch a wink that night with the curtains in my room swaying to the storm outside.
Few years back, my friends had a sleep over at my place. The local kids played a small prank by calling us middle of the night saying that someone was on the roof top. The rain outside made sure that the memory was well etched in my mind for years to come.
The day had been perfect yesterday till I was almost asleep. Then the storm broke, making the trees sway and windows shatter. I tried to bury myself under couple of pillows to drown the noise but no avail. I woke up in the morning to read about Myanmar being hit by hurricane. With all the technology advancements, there is no way to curb the nature. But then why should nature listen to us when we don’t listen to it?
7 comments:
the myanmar tragedy and teh earthquake in china...both examples of nature's fury...but most saddening is the way the relief measures are being hampered...
u said it so well there in teh last 2 sentences...
we had an asoka tree infront of home and i used to be scared whn ever i see it dancing to the tune of winds. but then i got accoustomed and started enjoying it... and used to run to front porch to watch it dancing whn it rains...
Isnt it amazing hwo childhood memories still haunt and govern us?
You are very right about man being powerless in front of mighty nature.
We had to cut down the Ashoka trees in my parent's house 'cos it used to do a war dance every monsoon season...and my hallucinations would run wild...
but still we are like puppets in the play of nature...and we might just have to stand as mute spectators isn't it...
So many calamities and all in the name of nature , sad!!
Just yesterday evening one of the ashoka trees on our roadside had almost bowed on to the electrical cable at a right angle. We were scared the power might go off. We blame it on nature for what happened in China and Burma. We also know why nature plays this with us. But the Jaipur blasts are really unanswerable.
Suma: Nature fury cannot be curbed
XH: Nice that you overcame your fear.
PS: I can remember many of my childhood days.
Prats: I really dread swaying trees.
Sumana: For Jaipur blasts, blame the humans. I know the world is not a safe place but hopefully things should change.
if nature's instances of fury would be a sign, then we're perhaps wayyyyy past the warning point! sigh!
oh well. you were one cute kiddo... trees getting hurt! aw! :) i used to freak out each time I ate the seeds in a fruit. I'd lose sleep thinking there's a tree growing in my belly... I'd refuse to drink water until mom would spank me!:)
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