The night of the hurricane

A short story by SHUBA NARAYANAN

If human beings could smell a storm brewing, the way many animals can, these are what we would associate with the smell of a storm: the faint scent of rust from reddish, brackish water flowing out of rust-red pipes; sweat soaked polyester; the smell of dry ash and burning rubber. The smell of a storm brewing

A sweltering humidity weighs down on the earth like a thick acrylic blanket that does not allow you to breathe. Then, like a blessing from heaven, the sweet smell of rain, sensuously filling the air even before the first large drops of water fall from the sky. Smell that makes you want to grab a handful of the rich brown soil and taste it in your mouth!

It was 1984, the 11th day of November. A day when I could definitely smell a storm brewing. I got up and clumsily rocked to the side of the bed, before sliding down and walking towards the kitchen, from which was wafting the most delicious aroma of freshly brewed decoction coffee. 35 weeks pregnant I might be, but nobody was going to deprive me of my legitimate dose of caffeine.

My mother’s kitchen smelt of coffee as the decoction dripped into the lower container of the ancient brass coffee filter we still used. You know, the kind with two brass canisters fitting into each other, the top cylinder containing little perforations that act as a second filter. Coffee pregrounds are scooped into the top cylinder. A little perforated disc with a handle is placed on the coffee and boiling hot water is poured over the disc. Same principle as a plunger, except it takes all night for the double filter to allow the thick black decoction to seep through to the lower cylinder.

Making the morning coffee is a bit of a ritual in most South Indian households. The decoction is shared out into tall steel tumblers, placed into “davarahs” - little steel rimmed bowls - and hot milk poured over the decoction, followed by little scoops of sugar. The coffee is then poured from tumbler to “davarah”, then back into tumbler, until the brown liquid is sufficiently short of scalding hot, to be drunk without burning your tongue. In Madras where my mother lived, we drank coffee like that on hot and humid summer mornings, hot and humid summer afternoons, warm and humid winter mornings and warm and humid winter afternoons!

On that day, the 11th of November 1984, I took the tumbler of coffee my mother handed me and absently pouring it into the “davarah”, I wandered out to the front of the house. Even the morning dew and the residual coolness of the fading night, could not hide the fact that it was going to be a suffocatingly hot day.

I pushed my way past tendrils of bougainvillea hanging down the side of the pergola which shaded the front patio. Magenta, mauve, orange and white bougainvillea blossoms lay tangled on top of the pergola, the heavy knotted branches of the bush, making the bamboo trellis sag in the middle. I walked down the driveway to the front gate and began picking the fragrant jasmine flowers from the shrub trailing over the adjoining wall.

On that day, the 11th of November, I did not particularly feel like reading the newspaper. I wanted my little human being to be born, so I could return to Dubai in the Middle East and get into the job of being a mum. My husband and I lived in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, but because this was our first child, we had decided that I should fly back to Madras, to draw on the “support system” of parents, grandmother, aunts and household-help, that we could not access in Dubai.

I put the coffee away and went in to have a bath. The maid had half-filled a plastic bucket with hot water, which I then topped up with cold water from the tap. I dipped in a large plastic mug and poured the delightfully warm water on my swollen body. The baby jerked and darted forward in my belly. “It shouldn’t be too long now”, I thought to myself.

The day passed, flat and dull, all of us making desultory attempts to seem active. My father had kept the television turned on just to have some noise flowing through the house. I closed my eyes to shut out the noise, abolish the nastiness of reality. I tried to focus on the miracle that will be my child. Tried to concentrate on that moment of complete purity, which would define the rest of my life.

A cool change had set in. Dark clouds had gathered across the tropical blue skies and there was a cool breeze blowing. The servants were bringing the clothes in from the clothes lines. I noticed it had begun to rain lightly. I went out into the front garden. This time, the bougainvillea “pandal”, the pergola, had begun to shake, gently at first and then more violently, as if a giant hand were playing with it. The wind was blowing more strongly, crashing through the tall coconut palms, drowning out the rain, which by now was falling in dense sheets.

I loved the smell of the rain. “The Winter Monsoons are setting in,” my father muttered to nobody in particular, as he paced up and down the verandah.

Somewhere in the distant skies, I heard thunder.

The wind’s roaring was drowning out that sound as well. I went back into the verandah and sat down on the cane chair that was permanently set out there. I needed to listen to the rain, to have the cool breeze blowing on my face, to touch the cool rain.

The pergola was shaking even more violently. I looked skyward. The 20 or so, 60 foot palms that surrounded our home, were swaying to and fro, like so many straws in the wind. The bamboo pergola was creaking under the weight of the bougainvillea, as the bush bowed and wove under the force of the wind.

“Come inside, Makha!” called my mother. I went inside the house, a little frightened by the ferocity of the storm. The television station had decided to interrupt the steady flow of bad news, with more alarming news. Hurricane warnings were being issued.

The weather bureau was forecasting gale force winds. There was a depression in the Bay of Bengal they said and winds were now blowing at 150 km per hour and were likely to increase in force. This was a hurricane.

Residents were asked to remain indoors and keep

I made myself another tumbler of coffee. So did my parents. My mother had made a snack of boiled peanuts and we munched on that. The television news update had scenes of how the storm was affecting Madras. I leaned forward to turn the volume on high, when it happened! The first twinge of pain which told me my baby was ready to arrive!

Outside, the winds roared - the angry, frustrated roar of a large, wild animal in pain. Somewhere behind my own pain and fear, I empathised.

“I am feeling some pain - not much!” I informed my mother.

Her response was predictable.

“Oh my God, not now! Not in this weather! This must be the unkindest cut of all,” she replied.

I telephoned my cousin’s wife, an obstetrician. She was going to deliver the baby. She snapped to life when I telephoned. She had been anticipating this moment for days.

“Stay calm! How far apart are the cramps?” she demanded.

“45 minutes give or take” I replied.

“Report to the hospital when they are about 20 minutes apart,” she said.

I sat back on our sofa and waited.

It was only 4pm, but outside, the sky had turned ink black. The street lights had not come on. The rain continued to fall and the winds continued to bluster and roar… but in the distance, behind the crashing thunder and swish swish of the rain, behind the a long, mournful whistle.

My father leaned forward and saw two figures holding up umbrellas, walk up our driveway. Athai, my father’s sister and my grand-mother, had heard the news from my cousin and were coming in to check on me.

The ladies lit a lamp in the tiny shrine situated in the corner of the kitchen and said a quiet prayer to the Gods, asking for a safe delivery for me.

I walked back and forth timing the cramps. They were 35 minutes apart. Outside, the wind continued to roar, a sound louder than the crashing of the sea; louder than the roar of a plane. A crashing, angry roar that ended each time in a long, demonic, wolfish howl of pain. It was about 5pm then.

About an hour later, I phoned my cousin’s wife Gita, again.

“It’s 25 minutes now!” I said.

“You’d better make your way to the hospital now,” Gita commanded. The risk of trees falling was so great, we could not take the van. The hospital was only half a kilometre away - a nice, easy stroll, if the sun had been shining and if I had not been in labour. On a night like this, it might as well have been on the other side of the moon. The gale blowing all around us, the swaying palms and flickering street lights, and despite the meagre lighting, the darkness of it allcertainly reminded us of an alien landscape.

Still the rain fell. Still the wind roared and crashed, each crash ending in an extended howl. My mother and I packed our bags. She was allowed to stay in the hospital with me. This was a family practice and we were family.

We made a strange spectacle as we trooped out of the house, the five of us, me wearing a loose kaftan, with a shawl wrapped around my shoulders; my mother carrying a bag of clothes; my father, grandmother and aunt with umbrellas and small wicker baskets filled with odds and ends.

We waited in the verandah for my father to lock up the house. The front patio was fast turning into a disaster area. The rude shaking the bougainvillea had received, had sent the rainbow-coloured blossoms to the floor of the patio. There, they floated in the ever-rising water, bobbing forlornly, like so many catamarans battling a choppy sea. For a second there, I almost forgot the wind. A cracking, ripping sound forced the hurricane back into our consciousness.

The bougainvillea had given in. With a wrenching, crashing dive, it broke through the bamboo trellis work and crashed to the floor of the patio. Bamboo splinters and thorny bush lay everywhere, cutting off access to the gate. The only thing that stood between us and the howling, roaring demon that was the hurricane, was gone. I went back to the verandah and sat down.

“Hurry up, we had better get to the hospital before anything else happens,” my mother hissed through gritted teeth, panic giving way to anger at my slowness. “Keep to the right of the road. Stay as far away as you can from the power pole. There won’t be any traffic coming our way,” my father said grimly. An electric shock could hit you like a blow to your head. I shuddered to think what that fallen power pole could do to us and my baby.

We stepped over the fallen tree in the middle, to avoid the branches that now made the road impassable for all motor traffic.

“Thank goodness coconut trees are so narrow at the trunk,” I commented as I forced my heavy body to make the small leap across the trunk.

My cramps were coming in short waves, about 15-18 minutes apart. The rain still fell but we could use the umbrella to protect ourselves from the rain. I tried not to focus on my own pain, listening instead to the sound of the hurricane

My father dragged out a pair of shears and a sharp knife. He, my mother, my grand-mother and my aunt, set about attacking the bougainvillea, cutting away branches, to allow us a narrow path to the gate. Wearing only leather sandals on our feet, we picked our way through the vanquished bush to the front gate.

My cramps were coming in short waves, about 1518 minutes apart. The rain still fell but we could use the umbrella to protect ourselves from the rain. I tried not to focus on my own pain, listening instead to the sound of the hurricane. We opened the gate cautiously and stepped on to the road. It was almost 7pm now. The wind pushed us forward, then jerked us to the side with each blow and return. My father and aunt each carried a large flashlight to light up the street ahead of us. The street lights were still glowing, but with the power poles being buffeted by the wind, who could tell what would happen.

“Watch out for snakes, insects and live wires,” my father called out. There had been no time to call my husband to tell him that we were going to the hospital. We left that for later. My grandmother, aunt and mother, hitched their saris up to their calves, to avoid getting the gold borders in the muddy water which was swirling at our feet as we wound our way to the hospital whose front porch light shone ahead of us.

The rain still fell. The wind continued to crash through the palms. Battered and punched by the wind, one tall palm bent double, its fronds beating the terrace of the house across the road. We picked our way through water and debris as we walked along the road to the hospital.

Still the rain fell. Still the wind howled out its pain and anger, ending each time in that surreal howl/whistle. Still the cramps kept coming - this time at 10 minute intervals. It could not be too long now.

Once we had crossed over the fallen giant, our progress became more rapid. A few yards away there was the miraculous sight of one electric light lighting up the patient drop-off point at the hospital.

“Gita must have got the generator going,” my mother muttered.

We were met at the hospital steps by two of the most senior nurses in the hospital.

“These two nurses were present at your birth,” my mother said. She was right - the hospital staff had got the generator going and the hospital was the only building for several kilometres, with any light at all.

By the time the nurses had prepared me for the delivery, it was past 9pm. Enema, stirrups and Syntocinon drip later, I was into the hard labour part. Outside, above the closed blinds of the windows, through the glass skylights, I could see the rain still falling.

Just behind us, the door to the labour ward, built as it was 65 years ago, rattled each time the wind kicked it. With each blow, the double doors blew in and strained at the bolts. I could still hear the howl of the wind as its anger spent itself out. Struggling through the throes of childbirth, it seemed to me that my every massive spasm, had an echo in the storm. On it came, off it receded and I could almost believe that the howl/whistle in the distance, was just my body crying out for relief.

Struggling through the throes of childbirth, it seemed to me that my every massive spasm, had an echo in the storm

A few minutes into our pilgrimage, we heard a loud crash up ahead. We walked quickly up to a curve in the road, which would give us a better view of what lay for us ahead. I closed my eyes in dismay at the chaos unfolding before our eyes. One of the taller coconut palms had surrendered to the pummelling of the hurricane and now lay fallen across the road like a giant “rakshasa” - one of the demons of Hindu mythology.

We stared disbelievingly. The tree as it fell, had hit against the power pole across the road and sent it sprawling lengthwise, parallel to the road. A fiery explosion of sparks...then inky blackness descended on us as the entire neighbourhood, the “colony” as my family called it, plunged into the darkness of the underworld. Chaos had taken control. The only live thing around us, was that wind - blustering in anger one minute, howling in pain the end of each fresh tirade.

The obstetrician held my hand as in desperation I begged for a Caesarean.

“Just two more pushes and you are done, champion,” she said simply.

Later, she was to confess that the one thing she had been praying for all along, was a normal delivery for me. Had I needed a caesarean, there would have been no way for the anaesthetist, or blood or oxygen to have reached me through the storm.

The clock in the labour ward struck midnight. It was the 12th of November. As suddenly as it started up, the hurricane blew itself out. With a mighty push, the baby’s head emerged and the doctor and nurses slowly drew out my beautiful little girl.

“A perfectly normal, healthy little girl, Makha - all 3.8 kg of her,” Gita said as the nurses beamed.

I felt as if I had passed the toughest test of my life.

“Hello Sweety”, I greeted the new-born. As the nurses took the baby away to bathe her, I looked at the door. With one final blow from the wind, the bolts gave way and the doors blew inwards swinging free.

Outside in an anxious huddle, stood the rest of my family. Beyond them, was a little jasmine bush still covered with tiny white blossoms. Miraculously, they had survived the storm. Now as they glowed sweetly in the faint light from the porch, I looked at the brand new human being the nurses placed in my arms. Fragrant and newly cleansed, innocent, pure and beautiful, she was my own little jasmine, left behind by the hurricane. I called her Sumana - Sanskrit for jasmine.

ARIES March 21–April 20

TAURUS April 21–May 21

GEMINI May 22–June 23