Hyderabad: My phone rang. ‘Ma’ flashed on the screen. “Didn’t she JUST call,†I wondered as I swiped the screen and pressed it close to my ears. “It’s shaking again,†she said, this time, her tone being more accepting.
My mind darted back to the 25th of April, when I’d received a similar call. “There’s an earthquake, everyone’s running outside,†she had squeaked into my eardrums as soon as I took her call. Panic was stamped all over her voice.
About a fortnight and a couple of aftershocks later, she has accepted it and gotten used to it. This earthquake shook the ground, but didn’t shake her. “Be careful,†I said, my voice trailing away. “How,†she asked. “How,†I wondered.
Perhaps we have given up, given up over the fact that we human beings are the smartest creatures. It’s time to break that bubble; we aren’t. Crows and dogs get a sense beforehand and they howl and caw like a forewarning.
We, we don’t even realise sometimes. And even when we do, our thinking suffers a paralysis and more often than not, renders us unable to do anything at all.
Such is life. We feel just because we’ve landed on the moon, we as a race are invincible. We are not. Nature created us and it will destroy is; only the ways will be different. Floods, droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons claim thousands.
We’re not smart. We just pretend to know everything. “There’s seismic energy being stored. It will get released,†we claim. Where, when, how – we have no answers to these questions. Nature on the other smirks, hits us when we least expect it. And hits us hard.
So, yes, all we can do is pray, predict and keep quiet. Try to be smart. That’s all.
We’re at the mercy of nature, and she isn’t happy right now.