pitter-patter rain drops..

Just looking out of my window and seeing rain drops softly trickling down every tiny leaf is fascinating. There is a little bird which looks like it has had its shower but hasn't dried it's head yet, sitting on the tree, rubbing its wet orange beak on one of the branches. My roommate looks at me gazing out of the window, laughs and opines that I must've been a frog in previous birth.
She probably has never smelt the scent of fresh earth before a rain, stopped to look at the fresh-green after a rain or felt the one or two stray drops of water when you rustle against a wayward branch. Some things can only be sensed, never explained.

However, I can't help feeling sad about the loss of lives during the recent torrential rains at mumbai. Reading about the anxiety of people caught unawares goes to your heart. There are stories of bravery, where normal people turned into heroes and saved the lives of many. Then there is talk about the 'spirit of mumbaikars', which was undeterred by the calamity. People were coping without complaining. But then, thousands of people have seen their savings of a lifetime destroyed. How will all these people come to terms with their loss?

It feels like a repeat performance of the tsunami which struck hardly half-a-year ago. I can't help feeling a sense of 'why DON'T we have any kind of warning system in place?' now, as I did then. Why is it that we always have to face a large-scale destruction before we take preventive measures? Is that the curse of being a 'developing' nation? Who can replace the lives which have been lost?
Just because we are over a billion strong, is it ok to lose a thousand now and then?

People blindly blame pollution and deforestation. If only each of us stop to think before throwing a plastic cover in the sea, before cutting down a tree in our courtyard to construct an annexe to our house. I read an article about the journey of a single plastic cover through estuaries and the ocean, choking hundreds fishes and seals to death. Why don't we just take the pains to find the nearest trash can to throw non-degradable waste?

We cannot make large-scale changes single-handedly. But each of us can definitely do our own little bit, that one little drop, which will go a long way in bringing about the improvements we desire.