natural disasters

In the not too distant future the city of Kolkata in India is besieged with floods and famine. Ma, her elderly father, and two year old daughter are preparing to emigrate to the US where her husband has a good professional job. This is one of the families in the story. The other is a poor family from the Sundarban struggling to stay alive while the oldest son, Boomba, has gone to Kolkata to try to earn enough to save his family.

In the two weeks time of this novel, Boomba, driven to desperation and holding a secret about Ma, breaks into Ma’s house and steals her purse which contains the passports for her, her father, and her child. Both her actions previous to his, her current actions, and Boomba’s lead both down paths they could never have previously dreamed with dire consequences for all.

Due to the flooding and famine, everyone in the city is desperate except for the one billionaire who has stayed. Their desperation leads some to behave in undesirable ways, but the main “lesson” of this novel illustrates how just one action by one person can lead to dire consequences for two entire families and possibly others as well–actions have consequences you can never begin to imagine. Be careful.

Initially, I planned to continue my Apocalyptic Planet series, but today’s events caused me to choose otherwise. As I sit here writing this, I can see the endless blowing dust through the spotted window. Sometime today, while I was at work, it sprinkled while the dust blew. Now every window on the east and north side of my house appears as if someone had thrown handfuls of nearly dry mud at it. My black car looks the same. The wind whistles in the flue of the wood burning stove in my bedroom. This storm blows harder and longer than the one we experienced last week. Tomorrow they forecast more of the same.

Saturday I stopped by two greenhouses to purchase some hanging baskets and native flowers. The mesquite trees kept telling me, “Wait, wait. Cold will come again. Wait!” Normally, I obey what the mesquite trees tell me. They never come out until they know without a doubt the cold is over and they feel safe. I bought the flowers anyway. This coming Saturday, Hilltop Senior Citizen Center in Amarillo has their Gala at my house to raise money–complete with a silent auction, food, and drink to raise some much needed money. I want everything to look springlike and pretty. I heard the weather forecast on the radio coming home from work. I just looked again on the Internet. Frost predicted tonight and even colder tomorrow night. After I fed Rosie, placing the alfalfa as much out of the wind as I could, I brought the hanging baskets inside and poured a bunch of water on the other new plants. The native plants, tough, worry be little. The others will not survive 33 degree weather. Later, I will go out and cover them with old towels, hoping the wind relents and does not blow them off.

Everyone here posts photos of the dust on the Internet and gripes about this horrid weather. Although I certainly dislike it, I refuse to complain. This, too, is tornado country. I listened to the news this morning and again coming home from work. Thirty four dead, whole towns destroyed, a new school flattened. Here I see no devastation, only the endless, depressing, annoying dust and wind. My friends, family, and I are alive, our houses intact. Rosie huddles behind the barn, still healthy, neighs when she hears me coming. Gratitude engulfs me.