I can still feel the pounding of my heart as it all happened in the blink of an eye. Just as we had shut shop at Hindustan Park, a little after 7pm, the storm brewed. I jumped into my car and headed towards Southern Avenue where I live.

And then it was upon us in a flash: that colossal gust of dust, trash, leaves, plastics, uprooted roadside sheds, tins, bamboos, pieces of wood and what not that was simply being tossed around in the air. Straight out of a Harry Potter showdown with Voldemort. Visibility was reduced to zero.

This crazy flash-storm was hitting everything in sight and we cowered, waiting for our windscreen to be hit. Within seconds the skies started pouring. Thankfully, I thought, the rains would calm the storm.

And then the worst happened on Purna Das Road: trees started crashing. And if it wasn’t the trees it was their large, really large branches that were snapping like twigs but sounding the death knell.

We kept crawling, heart in mouth, me trying to calm my otherwise fearless driver. Our eyes were skywards, both because I wanted the Divine to help us as also since we wished to miss the crashing trees. Crawling up to Southern Avenue we heaved a sigh of relief. We were safe, or so we thought.

And then we missed it by a whisker. For, right in front of us a giant tree — or was it two — had crashed on to two cars on the opposite flank of Lake Kalibari.

It could have been any of us. Just about anybody.

(The writer is an entrepreneur and a t2 columnist)