No Words

If it weren’t enough that nature wreaked havoc in the past couple of days, with a cyclone and an earthquake killing people in mere seconds, in numbers that I can’t even register, now there’re these latest blasts that have been perpetrated with cunning precision and murderous planning. Six blasts in an hour, fifteen minutes apart, in places thronging with unsuspecting people, going about their everyday tasks. I don’t know which to be more shocked at– the ravages of nature: absolutely devastating and absolutely unforeseen or the contrivances of an insensate group of terrorists: vile and bloody, premeditated, no less unforeseen. In both, the cost is human lives lost. Put together, the numbers boggle me. I don’t know how to comprehend things of this magnitude.

How does one make sense of tragedy? Just looking at the pictures headlining every paper and every news portal is enough to leave you stunned and shaken. And while political developments or the latest in sports and entertainment can be reported and dissected ad nauseum, for tragic events, there are no words. So pictures are pasted across each story, and they wring your heart, but there are no words to describe them, no words to sufficiently grasp the scale of the situation, and what it must mean to one, two, thousands and millions. And you can only shake your head, ask why at best. With Myanmar, and China, and Jaipur reeling from the aftereffects, I realize that if on the one hand nature is revolting furiously and inflicting more harm and damage than man can ever fathom, on the other, there’s always the scum of humankind trying hard to match steps.