Cyclone Aila hits Kolkata

Cyclone Aila! I kind of missed the news in the papers in the morning and went to work. Only by late morning did I realise that this overcast sky was a big deal. “Aila!!!” a cyclone is what it was. Ok I thought to myself, as usual its heading towards Bengal and at the last moment will either hit Bangladesh or the Orissa coast. By noon with wind speeds hitting nearly 100kmph, and visibility going down to a few metres as I watched from our office window, I was beginning to wonder, especially when the local News Channels were only talking about the Cyclone. By noon, Kolkata Police had sent out a red alert and offices were shutting down, letting employees head back home before the cyclone hit. We could see the clouds racing across the sky and every now and then lightening and walls of rain moved across like a white veil. By 3 pm, things had gone from bad to worse.

I decided to take a stroll and headed to the ground floor and as I stepped out on the street, I realised what a cyclone was. The wind nearly took me off my feet and as I looked in both directions, the streets wore a near deserted look with a few stragglers diving for cover trying to make their way home. I decided to make my way back to the comfort of my office on the 9th floor.

There was nothing to do, but sit this one out. Then I got a text sms from SpiceJet saying that our flight to Mumbai the following morning had been cancelled. The rest of the evening was spent following the news and looking out of the window as Cyclone Aila hit Kolkata and trying to get tickets for Mumbai which we finally did.

I finally decided to head home after sitting out what seemed to be the worst at about 9pm. Outside our parking lot, a huge tree had been uprooted and lay across the road. Fortunately, it was after the exit and I had to drive in the opposite direction. On the drive back home, there were trees uprooted everywhere. Most of the hoarding flex prints were shredded and some of them had the entire structure crumbled to the ground.

The best was when we approached home. I dreadfully realised that our apartment complex was the worst place to keep a car in this situation. It has an abundance of trees and as we drove to our building the way was blocked by the tall Eucalyptus tree leaning across the road on one of the buildings. There was no way I was driving under this tree. It looked like a disaster waiting to happen. So I backtracked and drove around the apartment complex and approached our building from the other side. I parked my car on the opposite side a little away from where I usually parked because my normal spot was right under a tree that provided shade.

After about an hour while we were having dinner, I heard a thud and sure enough when I went out onto the balcony, I noticed the tall eucalyptus tree missing. It was lying right across the road. It was just a matter of time as I had guessed.

Anyway on Monday when I came back to office I noticed that the tree that had fallen had been chopped up, like many others that had been across the city. On the weekend when I had gone to the Tollygunge Club, the aftermath of the cyclone was quite evident. I heard over 60 trees had been felled by the storm. Tragic and yet makes us rethink of the ultimate power of nature.