Mother Nature has many different faces. Her beautiful face gives us joy, peace and inspires us everyday. But there are days when her fierce face is revealed to us and we are scared, scathed and scarred beyond limits. May 24th, 2020, was such a day, rather, a night.

That a Category 5 Super Cyclone “Amphan” had formed and was advancing towards our farm was announced repeatedly by the authorities as a warning. We did all we could to get ready to brace for the impact by securing trees, trimming them, securing cages and aviaries and removing all unanchored objects. Families of tiny finches and softbills were transferred indoors to heated quarters. Baby birds which had just descended to the aviary floors from the nest boxes and had not yet learned to fly properly were transferred to our “Nursery Section”. Incessant rains from the morning of 24th May caused water-logging at some areas of the farm. Birds from the aviaries situated at those areas were shifted indoors. By evening, a few of our kennels were also full of ankle-deep water. The dogs from those kennels were brought inside. At one point, we had a shivering kitten, an irritated Rottweiler, two understanding German Shepherds, a fourteen year old Dachshund and a month old curious Channel Billed Toucan chick (who was being hand fed by me) inside our bedroom together. We were on vigil throughout the evening, as the winds started lashing onto us. It was the fiercest storm in 283 years, at 160 Km per hour, with gusts upto 185 Km per hour for more than four hours during landfall, uprooting trees and knocking down electricity poles, resulting in massive damage to our boundary walls and collapse of walls at some areas inside our premises. One of our gates was twisted and blown off. Some of our buildings developed cracks. 90% of our large trees were uprooted. We lost the trees we had nurtured and cared for more than 20 years in a single night. The smaller ones, including more than 600 banana plants and around similar numbers of papaya and guava trees were totally destroyed. We were unable to save a few of our birds as well but it was indeed a miracle that most of our birds were able to make it through the calamity to see another day. We spent the entire day after the cyclone in just trying to get access to our aviaries, cutting through the maze of fallen trees. The topmost fibre covering our Turaco enclosure was blown off. A part of it was discovered from a 5 Km distant village by one of our staffs after three days. The remaining part was never found. However by the grace of God there was no human casualties at the farm. Electricity, telephone and internet connections were all lost. All roads from the farm were blocked for more than a week. We were without electricity for seven long weeks. It took us more than a year to get the rehabilitation work in place.

In the midst of all the traumatising pictures of the morning after the fateful night, there was a couple who brought smiles onto our faces. As we were inspecting with shock and horror, the ravages caused by Amphan, we suddenly saw two huge Neapolitan Mastiff dogs, Neo and Cherry, walking in through our storm ravaged main gate nonchalantly with their natural elan and poise in place. They took each step with measured strides, the ground below them shaking under their combined weight of almost 200kg. It was a sight to behold! We followed them to their kennel, to find that a wall of that kennel was destroyed by the storm, most possibly in the late evening when the winds were at their peak. They had ventured out of the farm through that breach and had roamed outside God knows for how long, travelled a long distance around the periphery of the farm and miraculously reached home safe in the morning. We could not but smile to see how peacefully they slept after the night long of adventure.