Thursday, 7 January 2021

The Hailstorm

While leaving Goa we had invited all our friends to the mountains before they would fly back to their homeland, Russia. Some of them had made their plans to visit us. We were excited to see them again. The first friend who came to Salli was Sasha with her 3 young kids and in the state of expecting one more. Sasha was Madhu's best friend in Goa for the last 8 years. They had a really great bonding with each other which I had seen while we were in Goa. Madhu would take care of her kids like hers and they would equally love her back. I could sense the excitement in Madhu's eyes to see her best friend and the kids. That was the first time Sasha would be seeing Salli as the house was ready just in that year. After flying till Delhi they came to Salli all the way by car. They reached around 10:30 at night. The driver was really good as he safely drove through the dangerous patches of Salli road in that darkness. 12 hours of car drive was equally exhausting for the driver and the passengers. At night time mountains would get extremely cold. They had switched from 40 degrees temperature of Goa to 12 degrees of Salli in just one day. Just after stepping out of the car, they started shivering. We knew that would happen so we had carried warm jackets for everyone. Quicky after welcoming them we started our small trek uphill through the forest with the help of a mobile flashlight. We asked the driver to spend the night as it was very late and also an exhausting drive. 

We had a big open land in the front which was part of the house. Unlike in the plateaus, the mountain land is spread across in steps. On those spread out steps, people would either build houses or do farming. Our house was built on the first step. The second step was kept for farming and the third, fourth step was laying idle where kids would play cricket. Just in front of the fourth step, there was a naturally created water pool in the same stream which had passed by next from our garden. All our guest would enjoy going into that pool. Sasha and her kids were really enjoying the mountain life. Sasha would help Madhu in cooking and farming. She had brought with her varieties of plant seeds. Just like Madhu, she was close to the soil. Looking at what Madhu had built in the middle of the forest, Sasha was really proud of her friend. I would see them sitting in the balcony talking for long hours. Her kids had already become friends with Noor and the local kids. They would play cricket, climb the trees, jump in the pool, sit on the buffalo or just go hiking up in the mountains. I had seen them in Goa and now looking at them in the mountains in their true colour was simply fascinating. I guess kids were supposed to be raised in nature and not in the cities. Humans and animals truly belong in nature and not in the zoo-like cities. 

One afternoon after lunch we were sitting in the living room. The sky was getting dark with clouds and the wind was flowing with an unusually high speed. I went out to check. Trees were dancing in the wind and were getting a good air blower wash. I saw some villagers in the mountains running behind their cows and goats to take them under some shelter. Everybody in the house ran outside to pick up the cloths which we had hanging on the rope in the garden to dry. We checked if there was anything to take inside the house as winds were getting stronger. We closed and bolted the door while everyone was sitting in the same room next to the kitchen. Suddenly, there was a loud thunder followed by lightning which was visible from the window. The thunder was so loud that it skipped everybody's heartbeat. In the same moment, lights went off. The kids were getting scared while their mothers were keeping them close. One more thunder boomed with a strike of lightning, that time even louder and scarier. Weather in the mountains was really unpredictable and dangerous. Abruptly, the wind stopped and we heard a strange noise coming from the roof as if someone was throwing stones on it. I looked out of the window and to my surprise, it was raining hailstones. In a matter of 15 minutes, the whole mountain ground was covered with a blanket of white snowballs. The hailstone cloudburst was so heavy that it broke some of the roof slates and made their way into the rooms and kitchen. Everybody was running around and struggling to stop the roofs from leaking. After fighting for a long time we surrendered in front of the mother nature and decided to go out and enjoy the show. By that time the storm had started to fade out and hailstones were replaced by pleasant raindrops. I was stunned by the wild dance of nature. The stream next to our garden was flooding heavily with mud colour water. There were many rain water-induced streams flowing down the mountain making it look like hundreds of waterfalls in front of our house. Trees were looking astounded as if their mother had just washed them with forceful love. That reminded me of my childhood baths. Kids were going nuts in collecting snowballs and eating them. Life in the mountain was again returning to the normal.

There Was Some Beauty In Surrendering To Nature.

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