The TANDAV of NATURE!
I reached home Friday night at 9.15pm and switched on the TV. The weather man was explaining the inflow of some clouds and issuing a warning that a thunder storm was on its way. 15 minutes later, the thunder storm warning had turned into a tornado warning, with its eye exactly passing from over Austin! It was an emergency weather report and the weather man said the safest place to be right now is at the most lowest place of the house like the basement. Exactly 20 minutes later, the roaring began and the rattling on the windows started increasing steadily. After a moment, the sounds on the windows was muffled by a huge continuous roar which seemed to be muffled only by our closed doors and windows and so we opened the door of our apartment. And out there it was....in its full glory....it seemed to be raging through our county at tremendous speed, ready to crush anything that was in its way. The sound it made was a deafening roar accompanied by the clatter due to the hail stones hitting on the cars, their size each nearly the size of a golf ball. This was the first time I ever saw a tornado, and really felt like Lord Shiva was doing his Tandav Nritya. The way it had been explained in the books, I saw it in real for the very first time. And all I can say is that we humans are just nothing but very puny and tiny in front of the wrath of nature! The above pic is not that great but the second car in the far behind is no more that 25 feet away from my door you can imagine the visibility. It was nothing but 25 minutes of shear wrath and anger. After the storm I looked up into the sky and saw the shining stars and a crystal clear full moon night! It seemed as if the sky had underwent a quick bout of weekend laundry :-)
Monday, March 28, 2005