Super Cyclone in the time of Pandemic

<p>I'm sitting in my balcony, assessing damage. The grandfatherly neem tree that gave me comfort in times of trouble, has become almost barren. Its leaves lie strewn all over the street, on the rooftops of the surrounding houses, inside their verandas, under their beds, and everywhere else surprising in unexpected ways. The palm trees look perpetually bent. Mangoes lay on the sidewalks, damaged, dead before prime.</p><p>The nearest four point intersection is waterlogged making it look like a fallen crucifix. Perhaps God too has given up. A house in the distance look different? Oh, the roof blew away. And there's another. And another. And another with the roof broken halfway. I think of the people inside, who shivered their way to sleep yesterday. The fans, lights, water filters, pumps lie dead, no electricity for more than 20 hours. Drinking water is scarce and tap is running dry. The daily ritual my family had of morning baths, puja and watering plants is interrupted. The puja room lies desolate. The humdrum of mornings is replaced by a gloom silence, the silence is more deafening than the wailing wind yesterday. How long? What next? And in that moment all the dreams of smart home and artificial intelligence seemed like a distant reality, rather a frivolous aspiration when humankind is still affected by power cuts and disruption of basic amenities.</p><p>My family is safe, my home unscathed and no windows broken, survivor's guilt and takes over the voice of reason. My not so previleged neighbours have knee deep water inside their bedrooms, everything that used to lie on the floor are now on the beds, over their almirahs and all the lofty places, children lie huddled with wet feet, the vegetarian house stinks of fish. In '99, we faced a similar cyclone, it killed 10,000 and 30,000 more in the aftermath after a bad outbreak of diarrhea and cholera which followed. I really hope that history won't repeat itself, but hope is a scarce commodity, much like sanitizer and PPE,when a cyclone hits during a pandemic.</p><p>-Arundhati Dey</p>