Aila leaves speeding trail of sound & fury

KOLKATA: It was a split-second impulse that saved Prahlad Saha's life on Monday morning. As the storm raged, Saha stepped out of tea stall for a moment to check the sky. Even before he could look up, there was an earth-shaking crash behind him. Saha wheeled around and found his livelihood turned into a heap of rubble.
Saha's tiny tea stall got smashed as the frail tin roof caved in under the fierce onslaught of cyclone Aila.By late afternoon, clad in nothing but a dripping wet loincloth, he was already working furiously to salvage whatever little he could.
"I looked back to see that the entire roof had come down. Everything inside is smashed. It'll take two weeks to repair my shop and I'll have to take a loan of Rs 20,000," Saha, who earns about Rs 6,000 a month, wailed.
As Aila unfolded in a symphony of sound and fury over Kolkata, most were content to stay put within four sturdy walls and peep out in awe. But there were also the unfortunate few, who wee out in the open and felt the full force of the gale winds that screamed through Kolkata's roads and alleys.
Businessman Raj Kishore Shaw was attending a meeting at a school in Colootola when Aila came calling. "It was mayhem for about an hour. The tin sheets overhead were shaking and the windows kept slamming against their frames. The noise was earsplitting. And when I went out, it looked as if the building next door was actually moving. Bits of cement were falling off it," Shaw said, tired after walking to his S N Banerjee Road residence. He could find nothing on the roads ��� bus, tram or taxi ��� to take him home.
Shaw wasn't alone. At Esplanade, hundreds crowded on the roads as most offices called it a day early. With a trickle of buses and an inadequate number of taxis plying, office workers were forced to stand out in the squall waiting for a ride.
About three dozen people, shivering under umbrellas, stood in a winding queue for a shared cab to Behala. SK Ghosh, standing at the head of the row, was barely amused by what was unfolding.
"I've been standing here for half an hour and the line is growing by the minute. I might get a taxi quickly but the rest will have to wait for quite sometime. There's hardly anything on the roads. I'm not sure how I'll get home," Ghosh said. Around him, there was a sudden commotion as a half empty bus arrived. It was packed to
the rafters even before the conductor had a shout.
Early in the evening, a small crowd quickly gathered opposite Futnani Chambers after an asbestos slab came slamming down from the building's rooftop. Even as the police came around to investigate, an aged man looked at the scene nonchalantly.
"Things have been crashing around here all day. Trees, billboards, shop signs and now asbestos sheets. I kept my shop closed today because of the storm but tomorrow it will be business as usual," he said.
Around him, a battered city had already started limping back to life.