Cyclone winds

Last night there were heavy winds and we heard the speeding gusts howling and trees falling with thunderous thuds.

I opened the balcony door at 4:30am and stood watching how the cyclone was passing across. There was only the gutsy music of the passing wind and the night was 'silent' barring the commotion of the air.

It was wonderful to watch but I didn't venture into the open, as everyone was sleeping so I didn't want to disturb them and also I felt it was quite unsafe to step out.

I tried to photograph the bending branches of the tall casuarinas visible from the balcony but the camera could not capture the sight in the darkness.

A cow was calmly sitting in the open, near the compound wall, exposed to the rain and wind; crouched itself and silently observing the phenomenon.

I woke up in the morning, and saw the cyclone had not yet passed away. The view from my balcony presented a sample of the night's devastation caused by the great wind.

There were many uprooted trees, and fallen branches across the road. The road was green with the leaves spread all over, interspersed with  many twigs, and branchlets.

The wind was still wild. Holding an umbrella, I stepped out to capture the suffered environs, while my wife held me back for few seconds (telling me to be careful and be away from the falling branches).

In fact, I wanted to go to the seashore, but hearing her plea, resigned to that idea and assured her that I would only walk the street upto the main avenue and be back in few moments.

Then, as the sky drizzled, I walked with the camera in hand, taking some snaps of the wind's wild outcome.

I met a friend near the tree that was blocking the road to the Senior Hostel, and he said the damage was not as severe as it was in October 1985 when the then cyclone crossed exactly at this place whereas the present  Thane devastated most of Cuddalore and Pondicherry.

Soon he left me at the corner as I went in the opposite to have more snaps, and a stranger asked how so many trees fell in such large numbers, to which I replied, "There are so many trees here and so they fell off!".

And he laughed and said, " I see, there are so many...!"

"Yea, you won't see such phenomenon where there are no trees." I smiled at him.

Then he said, "For how long you're here?"

I said, "25 years", though I'm here for more than 26 years.

"What's your age!", he couldn't believe his eyes, looking at my lean figure.

"48"

I asked him about his whereabouts.

He said he joined recently as a trainee at the Research Center, and he's from Andhra Pradesh.

Then I said in Telugu, "I'm from Hyderabad"

He was surprised to here my words, and replied in Telugu.

After the photo shoot, I returned home and told my daughter about the conversation I had on he road.

She could not stop laughing, "There are trees, so they fell...".

I joined her and  laughed again and again.

More pics of Thane's dance on 29th December 2011

This morning when I logged on to Wikinut, I saw this poem by my friend Songbird:  Hear The Wind Doth Blow...

I could relate her poem to my experience of Thane, the cyclone of December 29, 2011 and thought that the human mind captures the same incidents in a similar way but in a different perspective.

Then, I felt I must add some more pics taken on 29th December 2011, but these pics were taken by my son in the late morning when the sun was shining after the rain stopped, the wind was still blowing at a reduced speed.

In fact he had already uploaded these pics onto his Facebook page.

That day he came back and said that the damage was not so much except the fallen honeycomb compound walls of the seaside houses which are mostly vacant.

Those houses had earlier suffered large damages by the impact of the great Tsunami waves that struck this shore Township on 26th December 2004.

The last pic shows a tree forming a bridge across the walkway, it is still existing and would be chopped off after the other major hindrances are removed from the roads.