The daily phone call, and Amphan tragedy

It was around 9 pm on May 21, 2020, and my phone, unlike other days, was not ringing. There was no incoming call. On a usual day, I would have received a call from my Amma’s or Achan’s number during that time, but this night was different. It was the day after the extremely severe cyclone Amphan had hit parts of Odisha and West Bengal.

My parents along with my brother reside in the city of Kolkata in West Bengal. Even as I write this, I haven’t been able to contact them. The last word I had with them was on May 20, 2020, when though the cyclone had hit the land, it was yet to touch Kolkata.

It was my brother on the call that day and it was not the usual 9 pm call. He had called before that during the evening, to tell me how the mango tree adjacent to our apartment building had fallen and how several branches from the big tree adjacent to the other side of the building had also fallen. My brother went on to say, “you should have been here, it’s beyond imaginable”, and before I could speak more the line was interrupted. Little did he know how badly I wanted and still want to be there, just so that I am with my parents and so that I could myself get an assurance that they are safe.

The same day, I had called Amma in the afternoon, when sitting nearly 2,000 kilometers away all I could do was watch regional news channels to get a timely update. It was not scary then, she said there was a power outage and that it was raining mildly with gusty winds. I am assuming electricity connections have not been restored yet, because the phones are switched off. It’s not just theirs, but even calls to anyone in the neighborhood is not going through. No, not even to the landlines.

My friend, who also stays away from home, was able to make a short call to her mother, who resides in the same residential complex as my parents. They are safe, she said. She couldn’t speak much due to the interrupted network connections, but she got assurance about their safety, which I am yearning for from my home. My friend’s call to her mother, however, gave me some respite assuming even my parents would be safe.

Part of my mind is understanding that they might be safe, but part of it is not at rest. There’s a mountain of questions that have formed in that part of the mind, with no answer to it. Is everything alright at home? What next? When will I be able to speak to them? Would the water stored have gotten over? How are they staying in the dark? When will the electricity restore?

These questions are additional to the already mounting ones as to when will I be able to visit home? When would travel become normal again? What if, God forbid, something happens before that? It’s been one year I haven’t been home, and this year that one-year gap seems even more painful given the Covid-19 and Amphan situations.

As I weep in sajdah, I find myself completely helpless not knowing how my parents are back at home and seeing my city completely devastated.

The images from news channels and that which has emerged on social media are heart-wrenching. The city I grew up lays torn apart. The streets I have been to several times are covered with uprooted trees. Familiar buses crushed under heavy fallen trees. The street that was a book haven (College Street, a 1.5-kilometer-long stretch in Central Kolkata that houses hundreds of bookstores and roadside bookstalls) saw pages of several books strewn all around the waterlogged road. That photograph in particular is the most difficult to forget among all the other horrific scenes of the aftermath. A sight no one would want to see. That’s my city now. Ripped, devastated, and unrecognizable!

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Image source: Twitter

Pray, pray, and pray a lot for all in West Bengal, Odisha, and Bangladesh, and along with prayers donate whatever you can to help rebuild Bengal, “আমার বাংলা”.