The December Disaster
Chennai, India
2024, Senior, Poetry & Spoken Word
That fateful day,
The clouds cried like cats and dogs
Empathising for a blue ball with green spots.
Watching this blue ball struggling through a disease
As deadly as cancer, wrenched the
Hearts of clouds till it turned grey.
Their wails were like thunders,
And wheezing like storms,
That shook our water and landforms.
The sorrowful tears touched the blue-green ball,
Ricocheted through bricks and tar
Till it left a deep red scar.
It washed away the happiness in thousands of homes
Till all that was left were broken bricks and lifeless houses.
The people ended up stranded on the streets,
Few snatched off of their loved ones.
The tears lasted a day or two,
But it’s impact, a lifetime.
Reflection
My work was inspired by the natural calamity (Cyclone) that my city went through recently. I felt overwhelmingly sad for the people who were economically backward and had to go through this calamity as I wrote this poem. It's because they are the ones who were most affected by this disaster. December is a month of floods and rain in my region; every year, the damage it does to the people here is enormous. The pain on the victims' faces portrayed their loss in every news channel. It moved me so deeply that I wanted others to know the impacts of urbanization without a proper disaster management system. Being a developing country, India has yet to master the methods of disaster management. In other countries, too, many such calamities are happening and I feel like since we are disturbing nature, it is also disturbing us. My message to the viewers: Don't interfere with our nature. It will turn into a domino effect and get back to us. Don't interfere with our nature. It will turn into a domino effect and get back to us.