Last One

The following is the last in my list of articles for the NXG :)

Thundering revelations

I woke up in the middle of the night. Thought I heard a loud explosion. As I opened my eyes and tried to come to my senses, I saw the tube light blinking. Then another explosion, louder than the previous one I guess. I closed my eyes in fear on hearing it. It was then that I realized that it was raining outside, the thunder is what had woke me up and the light had come from the lightning. Well, nothing unusual about it. It has happened many times before. What was unusual was that it seemed too loud and too close.

I couldn’t get any sleep after that because I got too scared. The lightning seemed to become brighter and the ensuing thunder grew louder and louder for every passing thunder and I grew more and more terrified, by every passing minute. It was as though I was going to get hit next. After that I don’t remember how and when I dozed off. The next morning when I woke up, I was just as terrified as the previous night. I asked my mom to make coffee and we discussed about the thunder showers last night over coffee and newspapers, outside on the patio.

My home is in the outskirts of the city. The weather was cool and moist due to the heavy rains last night. And the leaves and flowers of all the plants seemed greener than usual and fresh (they seemed happier :)). We later heard from the local folk that several television sets had been damaged because of the severe thunder storms the previous night. Luckily, nothing happened to our electronic gadgets.

I have always remained an ardent admirer of Nature. But on that fateful night, I got scared of it. There has been a lot in the news about cyclones hitting costal areas and everything standing in their way getting torn away. It reminded me of cyclones, hurricanes and tsunamis that affect so many people’s lives. Most of all, this incident made me wonder how small we are before Nature and that no matter how much man achieves, we are still at the mercy of Nature.