When Storms Refuses to Leave

It used to arrive with warning. A shift in the wind. The chirping of birds. A whisper through the Chinar leaves. In the past, even storms had difficulty; they came, they struck, they passed. The old timers could predict it with a glance at the sky. Children gathered in verandas to count thunderclaps. Fields bent but stood again. Lakes sighed but didn’t swallow.

However, something has changed. The storm no longer visits. It stays. It camps in the air; lingers in the soil; stalks the waters. It grows wild in orchards and sleeps inside our rivers. We don’t discuss it as a matter of weather. It has become something else, a shadow woven into the skin of this area.

Just yesterday, a 24-year-old man died after a fishing boat capsized in Dal Lake. They said it was the storm. Not just the one that tore through rooftops and broke down trees. But the one beneath, the silent stir. The lake is not what it was. The water, once a mirror-smooth, now reveals tempers. Depths have changed. Boundaries have blurred. It’s as if the lake itself is mourning.

They pulled him out, cold and blue. Locals stood by, helpless, hearts heavy with a grief that’s becoming too frequent. They did not say much. Here, sorrow is no longer a surprise. It floats with the lilies and sinks with the sun.

Beyond the lake, the story repeats. Fields that once grew saffron now sprout uncertainty. Apple orchards lie scraped: bark peeled, branches twisted, fruit fallen before ripening. The storm does not ask permission. It rips through hope like it rips through roofs. Walnut trees—centuries old—crumble in minutes. There are no frowns fast enough for such fury.

And then, the rain. Not rain as blessing, but rain as punishment. Too much. Too fast. It drowns the roots before they understand what’s happening. It washes away soil, and with it, history. What took decades to nurture is lost in one angry afternoon.

Climate change. The two words we hesitate to say aloud, as if naming it makes it worse. But we know. We feel it in our bones. Winters are confused. Summers, spiteful. The skies are restless. The land doesn’t sleep.

It is no longer about broken homes or fallen trees. It is about a change, about eco-anxiety. About an ecosystem being slowly altered by a jargon it doesn’t understand. Weather Weirding. Climate Chaos. Ecological Breakdown. Climatic Instability. Greenwashing. And what not.

And yet, the world moves on. Elsewhere, a high-rise mall opens. A ribbon is cut. A headline speaks of expansion. But here, we count losses in silos. A farmer with no harvest. A boatman with no lake. A child with no home. All victims of a storm that no longer looks like a storm but feels like eco-plunder.

Still, people fix their rooftops with borrowed tin. They sow with fingers crossed. They speak to the sky like it’s a cosmic sanctuary that forgot how to protect. They know now that the storm is no longer out there. It’s in here, etched into the day’s routine.

This is not strength. It’s survival. A daily negotiation with a furious nature and an indifferent world.

But even in this storm, there is a promise. A woman plants a sapling where a tree once stood. A boy writes a poem about water. A group of volunteers collects plastic from the lake, as if they’re healing a wound that bleeds in waves. The storm cannot silence everyone. Some speak in whispers. Some act in silence.

And there are still moments. A heron rising from the mist. A burst of light rupturing the clouds. A grandfather telling stories of a time when spring was serene and predictable. Memory becomes mettle. Continuity becomes courage.

We don’t need more disaster briefings or weather charts or forecast alerts. We need a pause. A reckoning. A return to balance. The land is speaking. The lake is weeping. The orchards are affirming.

This isn’t just weather anymore. It’s a warning. And if we don’t listen now, the storm may never leave.