An Afternoon with Aila

THERE I WAS — dripping wet and stranded in the middle of a rain-drenched C R Avenue desperately looking for a cab, clutching the soggy office bag and a wind-ravaged umbrella in my hands. But as luck would have it, the hunt for one of those yellow cars was increasingly proving elusive. Finding no other option, I started walking towards the metro station. The rain, bucketing down incessantly since morning, showed no signs of retreat. In fact, with every passing second it poured with renewed vigour. Along with the shower came strong gusty wind, shaking the roots of the city. The sky, masked in thick grey clouds added even more to the doomsday feeling. The mighty skyscrapers suddenly seemed so weak and frail, petrified of the approaching disaster. The rain-bathed streets too looked unusually deserted.

Nevertheless I walked along, ignoring the rain and the wind. The metro station was a ten-minute walk from there and I was barely twenty paces away. That was the moment ‘it’ happened! The rain stopped falling, clouds forgot to rumble, the streets gasped in astonishment, cars didn’t move, people stopped walking — everything came to a standstill. That was the moment I saw her. I saw Aila!

May 25, 2009 — a day every Kolkatan will remember for a long time to come. It was the day our vocabulary got enriched by a new word. It was the day we understood how it feels like being struck by catastrophe... It was the day Aila happened. A relatively unknown cyclone originating from the Bay of Bengal stormed our city and left it completely ravaged. The consequence: Kolkata was AILAshed (another new word, thanks to TOI). And I, like many other Kolkatans, was a spectator to the devastation.

The moment I ‘saw’ Aila — or to be precise, the moment I felt the intensity of the cyclone — was a to-hell-and-back experience for me, literally. Although the downpour coupled with chaotic wind continued throughout the day, there were times when the wind seemed to vent its centuries-old fury on the city. I, unfortunately, was caught in such a moment. As I was approaching the metro station, a gust of wind came and blew almost everything off the ground. So monstrous was its strength that I stood there absolutely motionless, not being able to move forward. I teetered, my legs started trembling. Unable to resist the thrust of the storm, I almost fell down on the road (had I been a little leaner, I would surely have blown over by the wind!). I held the umbrella as a shield, but that poor little thing was no match against the might of the wind. Seconds later, my umbrella was reduced to a mesh of black cloth and entangled metal rods. The trees in front of me swayed vehemently like a possessed soul. It was as if someone was shaking them violently in a fit of rage. The advertisement billboards that adorned the skyline could nowhere be seen. Only the iron frames remained, crushed into folds. The huge vinyl sheets, now tattered and uprooted from the frames, rolled in the streets.

My heart began to pound. I panicked! And strangely enough, for the first time in my life, I felt the strongest urge to get back to the place where I’ll be the safest person in the world — my home.

Three weeks have passed. Aila is now history. But the Kolkata I had seen on that day was a nightmare. The images of uprooted trees, mashed tin roof of shops, snapped electric wires embracing the fallen trees, shredded billboards and crashed cars will remain etched on my memory forever. The way my beloved city was rampaged, I pray we never have to relive those moments again. However today when I look back, the Aila-experience doesn’t send shivers down my spine. Instead, it appears to be quite thrilling a journey — fighting my way through the storm! But then that’s how life is. With time, the horror of even the worst disaster gradually fades away. What remains is the resonance.

Don’t believe me? Well, the very next day after Aila as I tuned in the radio, an FM station was playing a special Aila-song for its listeners:

Aila re, ladki mast mast tu, Aila re...