We Must Learn To Co-Exist Or Nature Shall Find Its Way!

Recently, a video on the web has showcased how dolphins and swans have returned to the lakes and canals of Italy, otters have made their way back to Singapore, and the Tel Aviv airport chronicled a perfect example of the ecstatic Egyptian geese that were walking freely across.  

All of this because we, humans are not stepping out, and are spending every other moment anticipating the times ahead, and its gruesome consequences. While, nature probably is having a hearty laugh amid all this ruckus…

I recall Nature's attempt to annihilate all evil forces very vividly from an early chapter of my childhood. Those days we would travel to our my maternal uncle's farm house, in the suburbs of Bengal, in a desolate place called 'Gobardanga', every 25th - 31st of December. It used to be a pompous affair, where Baromama (elder maternal uncle) would leave no stone unturned to make our stay comfortable. He'd drive us down from the town on 24th and would drive back on New Years eve, and then head to Park Street for New Year celebrations. 

I have watched him closely for over two decades and a half now, yet till date I haven't discovered the secret to his unending energy. When he is around, I keep strolling around him, secretly hoping and self prophesying if I could be like him someday…

This is an anecdote from one of those Gobardanga trips. The date was 26.12.2004. I was on the swing by the pond, probably leafing through the pages of 'Asterix', or writing an essay that mom had been asking me to write for a long time. Suddenly I saw our swans wailing in unison, there were some 12/13 of them. Their pitch went higher with every passing second and they crawled up to the shore.

Perplexed, I turned around to discover that there was a major movement in the water, so turbulent and rough that before this I had no inkling that fresh waters could produce crests and troughs. I called out to my father and Baromama frantically, they were dumbfounded to see this eerie spectacle. 

We stood there, petrified. Not knowing what to do, or who to seek help from. The movement continued for a good half an hour, but our swans didn't cease to shriek. Much later my father learnt about the epic Tsunami that was known to be one of the most deadliest Tsunamis in history and that had claimed around 2 lakh 30 thousand lives across 14 countries.

The news channels showed continuous footages of lakhs trapped, homeless and unsheltered. We were all shaken to the core. Who on earth would imagine a calamity that happened miles away, to affect us in such a horrendous way and disrupt our holiday?

How can we overlook the fact that we were just mere puppets before mother nature? She had given us chances over and over again, and we failed her time and again. 

As we are doing now. That incident happened 16 years back, but it's still afresh in my memory, and I haven't been able to wipe it off. Believe me, I would never ever want to encounter this monstrous side of nature, and neither should anyone…

People say that they read and heard about natural calamities, but 'we' SURVIVED it. Probably because nature had used this drill to pinpoint how powerful it can be, or maybe this was a lesson for us to learn how to co-exist. But for sure, nature has its ways, and it's not always peaceful.