Recent freakish weather was no surprise. It hasn’t been for the first time. Freakish weather occurrences have been a well-remembered part of our collective life on this planet. We get ample evidence of the phenomenon if we care to look at the mythological lore, religious scriptures, classical literature and ancient folk narratives orally transmitted from generation to generation. Who can forget the apocalyptic flood and Noah’s Ark regardless of the purported causes that caused unusual rains and rising of unstoppable waters.

The Epic of Gilgamesh is another myth from Mesopotamia that points to unexpected change in weather when the immortal man Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh about the Great Flood.

Here in the subcontinent we have our own tale on the same theme. Remember the mythical Matsya [Fish]? It’s one of the ten incarnations of god Vishnu in the Hindu pantheon. The lord Vishnu saves the world from a great flood. The first man called Manu gets hold of a fish that grows into a giant in size. Then comes the great food. Manu ties his boat to fish’s head in his desperate bid to save himself. Matsya that saves Manu from the ravages of furious waters emerges as a savior of mankind. What it all proves is that we have irrefutable evidence of occasional extreme changes in the weather cycles from the past which have been disasters the mankind miraculously survived.

Let’s now have a cursory look at the classical literature of the Punjab in order to garner some evidence in support of what has been postulated. In one of Shlokas [classical couplets] Baba Farid, the pioneer of Punjabi literary tradition, mentions an extreme change of weather as a metaphor that reflects human existential crisis. “Season changes, trees tremble, leaves fall and cover the path / I have searched the four corners [of the world] and found no place worth inhabiting,” he declares. The verse may be taken literally or otherwise but anyway it heralds the coming of unusual change in weather that blocks the paths man is forced willy-nilly to trudge.

Waris Shah [in his Legend of Heer] and Hafiz Barkhurdar [in his Legend of Sahiban] are on the dot when we look at what has happened recently in the Punjab in terms of unusual rains and cold that have wreaked havoc on the crops at this point of the year. “Jeth meen hte Sayal nu vaaomandi, Katak Magh vich manna anherianni” (Rain in the month of Jeth--May 14 to June 14--and wind in the winter are unwelcome / so are storms forbidden in the months of Katak and Magh --October 17 to November 15 and November 16 to December 14 respectively-- ) ”, says the bard. Why rain in Jeth or Vesaakh is bad? Simply because it destroys wheat which is one of the staple crops that sustains the populace. Traditionally farmers and growers had and still have no protection against the ravages caused by the vagaries of weather.

Inimitable Hafiz Barkhurdar in his tale reveals the vulnerabilities of peasants when he says: “Raakha vichaara kikaray, jaanpukki pain ghuray [What can a guard do when hail hits the ready to harvest crop!]”. We in fact find examples galore of this phenomenon in our folklore and literature. What it all establishes is the fact that we had freakish weather in past and still have it. But there is crucial difference when it comes to the present. Freakish weather in the past was outcome of what we may call an abnormal working of natural forces on the planet and space that surrounds it. It had little to do with humans as they had little control over nature and space. Their power to control the course of nature and natural forces was extremely limited if not non-existent. But the frightening situation we face now is quite different in the sense that as a result of evolutionary process of human society especially over the last two hundred years we, the humans, have acquired immense power to consciously and unconsciously intervene in the processes of nature for reasons right and wrong. It’s not advanced scientific knowledge and enhanced technological capability alone that makes it easier for us to interfere in the natural processes but more importantly it’s the flawed notions of human superiority and arrogance that have given us a false sense of smugness that we can intervene in the nature at will and can get away with it in our unbridled lust to exploit nature and its resources for our short-term gains. The insatiable lust for possessing the resources and what they help produce has been initially premised on the notions borrowed from religious traditions and capitalist thinking that resources are infinite and they can be exploited ad infinitum.

Fortunately since the 20th century there has been an increased realisation that our world is finite. How can we afford to have an infinite supply of resources in a finite world without endangering our future existence? But still exploitative and extractive institutions of state and society continue unchecked in pilfering natural resources causing irreparable damage to nature whose most conspicuousfallout stares us in the face in the form of climate change. When the unpalatable truth is out, what the merchants of death and destruction do is to brazen it out. So it’s not merely a question of compensating the growers whose crops have been lashed and slashed by the recent hailstorm. Their grievances no doubt need to be addressed immediately. The elite be warned to come out of its catatonic trance because we all will starve if our growers starve. The issue is in fact inseparably linked with the global crisis of degradation of nature and polluted environment whose one symptom is freakish weather.

Global situation breeds local crises which can only be tackled successfully if the root cause is identified and eliminated in the interest of the all concerned i.e. man, other creatures, nature and space. We can co-exist with nature as recipients of its largesse, not as its masters which we tend to believe in our false consciousness we are. — soofi01@hotmail.com

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2019