After Amphan

The internet connection appears to have steadied after more than 48 hours and now I'm realising the extent of devastation wreaked by cyclone #Amphan. Through posts on social media and news clips.  Even though I have experienced first hand , the effect of the cyclone was comparatively much less in the locality , I stay. Mainly , because it is a very cramped up agglomeration with lanes and byelanes . There are almost no trees on the roads . The main damage here occurred to window panes, tinned roofs and signboards.  And the small flat I live in, doesn't have the luxury of too much of free space in front. 

I had taken all precautions and stocked up on essentials. So apart from a candlelit night, it was not too much of discomfort for me physically. Materially, I suffered the loss of a window pane , which actually is a big headache to get fixed now. But it was the mental part that was more affected . Such was the intensity of the cyclone. I have no shame in admitting that for about two hours, I was literally cowering with a great degree of fear. With sounds of the howling wind and falling rain interspersed with breaking of glass panes and wrenching of tin signboards and covers around , it was surely a ghastly experience to experience , cooped up all alone in a small room with a burning candle. 

I have experienced many storms in life . As a child, I lived in a house that had about six sq kms of treeless wide expanse in front of it. Even any small storm was felt quite effectively. I remember during such storms, we could actually see them approaching . Me and my sister actually played around and enjoyed those storms in the summer evenings as they meant cooler weather and invariable power cut which meant less studies. 

But for the last fifteen years , my stay in Mumbai have probably made me softer in my approach to cyclones. It rains heavily in Mumbai . But such storms never happen . In between these fifteen years, my only such experience was on 12 Dec 2016 when I was caught up at Chennai due to cyclone #Varda and had to spend the whole night at the airport like the lesser priviliged do on the railway platforms. Barring that , I had almost forgotten about cyclones and storms. 

Cyclones emanating from the Bay of Bengal are more deadly and Kolkata is always affected , but all these days it has been indirect. The cyclones would land at Andhra, Odhisha or Bangladesh primarily. Probably after many years, a cyclone with such full force had the city of Kolkata on its path. And whatever Kolkata has suffered is only half of what it could had the Sunderbans not bore the major brunt of it . I don't have any idea of wind speed or historical relevance but can only say that this was a massive one. One that we will always remember.