Irene and I

Silvertalkies is happy to present a humour post by blogger Suranga Date. Here’s her funny take on the scheduled to the minute Hurricane Irene that hit the US East Coast recently and the ever unpredictable Mumbai monsoon. Enjoy!

I am sitting here , dry at home, at the desktop, the curtain billowing into my face, and sky is getting more and more ominous. This weekend in Mumbai, has been of nonstop lashings of rain, combined with winds.

Naturally, despite low pressures and depressions or whatever, that build over the Arabian Sea, there was no agency telling us to expect this onslaught over the weekend, and still continuing. Without fail, every time, someone appears in the papers, after the stuff has begun, to say how this is due to some low pressure bands, or winds or whatever. Which doesnt help anyone planning to travel and so on. I know at least one family which was travelling to Goa this weekend, and must be in the thick of this right now.

And those of us in Mumbai, simply continue to go to work, get totally wet standing at bus-stops trying to ensure the umbrellas do not suddenly turn turtle. Some cars, with fellows sitting inside agonizing about the stock market in the newspaper, careen by, splashing the potholed water on school uniforms, sarees, and wash-and-wear trousers.

And you stand in a bus, and don’t say a word, as your neighbor transfers his umbrella to the other hand, thereby dripping water on you; he needs to access his wallet in his pocket, buy a ticket, and it will be his turn next to enjoy a dripping umbrella , when you buy yours.

Our trains continue to trundle , overloaded with those that make Mumbai what it is , till it looks like a river flows ahead in its path. Then they stop. Between stations. Ever resourceful, the folks inside jump out, helping women out of their compartment, and start trudging along the tracks, umbrellas open, hands chained to the next person, so as to not be surprised by sudden gaps in the ground beneath the swirling waters on the rails..

Mumbai’s buses, those hardy bulwarks , sneeze their exhaust, and chug around, chock a block with passengers, giving a new meaning to the word “space”; there is always room for a few more… Once in a while, it all becomes too much while traversing a misjudged pothole , and the bus stops, at an angle, unable to continue. Traffic swirls around it, passengers rush to other buses, stand out in the rain, and life continues.

Papers are now full of how “repaired and filled potholes”, are once again remaining true to their original name; how pedestrians walkways are flooded, how we must be careful of flooded areas, because of the city’s trash floating in it, and like every year, hospitals give statistics on the latest likely epidemics, based on the patients they are seeing.

And then I read all about “Irene”, the hurricane calamity befalling the eastern seaboard of the US. Days before it is supposed to appear, it is all over the papers and on TV, the citizenry residing in the likely towns in its path, rushes out to hoard water, provisions, batteries, groceries, and whatever else. Television weather folks continuously track the advent of Irene, every twist, turn, and deviation in the path; not to mention sudden losses of strength. Timelines, indicate when to expect Irene where, as if she is Barack Obama on an official trip.

People are ordered to evacuate, kept away from beaches, signs on highways and freeways in Irene’s path, flash messages about the approaching hurricane, urging folks to reach somewhere safe.

I just heard about New York’s Grand Central Station being emptied, as trains are cancelled and stopped. Flights are cancelled .

And there are minute to minute updates , the most amazing one I read , that says, Irene is supposed to arrive someplace in 20 minutes. I mean, for someone who is actually subject to what is called Indian Stretchable Time (instead of the official Indian Standard Time), scheduling Irene right down to the minute is a bit too much. Such a prediction here in Mumbai would be impossible and infeasible. The most they would have said here , is that the landfall would happen tomorrow. And even then nobody would have believed them .

I can actually picture some mother in Queens, Long Island, rushing home from somewhere with her kids, turning into her garage with the click of the wireless garage door opener, clicking it shut, and then hearing the whoosh and bang of the rain outside, as Irene arrives, on schedule.

There are folks on Facebook giving brief entries about the Irene happenings in their areas.

In amazing Mumbai style, there is a picture of water cascading down the steps leading down to some New York area subway station. Then there are photos of people in boats on what were formerly roads in New York. There has been a huge amount of hype about the coming of Hurricane Irene, and everyone is mobilized, with offices shut, schools closed, semester openings postponed, people getting updates on Twitter, and President Obama sitting in at the Hurricane Headquarters . ( I actually saw a photo on the Net, and even wondered how he would get back to the White House, in case the hurricane struck while he was there. But I guess he follows and believes the weather folks there; I guess , he will reach back before Irene reaches the capital).

Someone in the weather bureau announces, that Irene is now being downgraded to a tropical storm , because it is, presumably behaving less angry.

I am just amazed Irene listens and behaves exactly as they are saying.

I don’t know why they name hurricanes as they do in the US. First Katrina. Now Irene.

If this was India, I guess Kareena would be jealous.

If they do name storms and stuff in India, only the weather folks here know about it. I don’t think they get time to prepare a name. Its like a baby arriving way before it is scheduled. Or maybe they prepare a name and it’s a false alarm.

But if they did, it would possibly named after a politician. Seemingly powerful, with a one track ambition of running roughshod over everything, to advance in its own path; misleading folks; causing a lot of damage to everyday ordinary folks, who actually voted for him.

Somewhere, Irene has finished her walk on the eastern carpet.

We carry on. Depressions, storms, cyclones, hurricanes and what have you. Nothing stops us.

And so , this morning, on a Sunday, a young girl, cycling in the rain and howling wind, to teach swimming to kids at dawn, at a neighboring facility, returns home, drenched in pouring rain, dripping , and doesn’t think it’s anything special.

She changes into dry clothes, zooms in on a hot breakfast, clutches her comfortably hot coffee cup, and says, “You know that blogger friend of yours who runs marathons ? I saw him running in the rain this morning as I was cycling by…….”

I am sure my blogger friend doesn’t think he is doing anything special too.

As Irene takes a deep breath and quietens down, somewhere else, nothing has changed.

The world goes on.

Suranga Date, 61, is a masters in Physics from UCI. She has worked for one of India’s leading IT companies when IT, in her own words, was not fashionable at all. She followed this up by working for one of the country’s premier tech institutions for the next 25 years and took voluntary retirement for personal reasons when IT was the field to be in (again, in her own words). She’s married, has two children (one a serious cricket blogger) and lives in Mumbai. She blogs at Gappa and at her poetry blog Strewn Ashes, which started as a result of commenting in verse on some wonderful photos by some bloggers. She has been been recently published in a poetry anthology and in a newspaper. 

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