The intervening night of May 9-10, 2018 saw Goa witness perhaps the most intimidating
thunderstorms in a long time yet. The heavy showers that followed, apart from
briefly causing power failures, gave enough fodder for Goans to keep social
media buzzing with status updates and posts about the severity of the
thunderstorm and its effect on various parts of Goa, peppered with a hint of
humour.
Nupura Hautamaki, a writer based out of
Saligao, was one of the early ones to take to Facebook to report the aftermath
of the thunderstorm. Nupura wrote in her post, “Goa finally had its first crazy
and non stop rain showers – the smell of wet mud after the first rains or
petrichor as linguists would say. Our dogs (were) also all excited about the
rains and jumping around and trudging muddy paw prints all over the house,
birds chirping away, thunder and lightning all of last night that I seemed to
have happily slept through, but an overall happy feeling, not to mention that
not missing the electricity that has been gone for hours since it is so nice
and cool today. Love the Goa life!” Many others were completely oblivious to
the phenomenon as they slept through it all, only to learn about it from friend
the next day. Akshay Prabhu Tendulkar, a resident of Borim in Ponda, posted,
“Looks like I belong to the race of the great ‘Kumbhakarna’ or I may be his
direct descendent. So many people awake since last night due to thunder/power
cuts/lightening/rain. I realised that all this happened last night when mom
woke me up #SleepIsBae.”
While
most were just happy that it finally rained, bringing in respite from the
scorching heat that has gripped the state for the last couple of months, a few
others were not too pleased. A few trees and lamp posts succumbed to the wrath
of the thunderstorm and therefore resulted in traffic jams and power failures
in most parts of the state. Others, fresh with the experience of watching the
superhero movie ‘Avengers: Infinity War’, likened the phenomenon to the fury of
one of the characters, Thor – the thunder god. Many took to Facebook to complain
of the disrupted electricity supply. Power supply continued to be disrupted in
most parts across North and South Goa even till the late hours of afternoon the
next day, making it somewhat unbearable. Popular DJ, Rinton D’Souza, in a
lighter vein, suggested a solution as he posted: “Those complaining or facing
electricity problems, head to the closest ATM.”
