EL-NINO: Proper or Misnomer?

Rain droplets peered from the clouds. What they saw, made their hearts break. They saw dust, dust everywhere: the earth was hungry and thirsty. Its lips were cracked, parched and lifeless. It needed water to save its soul. The water droplets, out of a sense of duty to help, held an emergency meeting at the expansive plenary hall in the clouds. They were so small and many that their silvery colour blended to become one big dark mass.

They reasoned that it wasn’t good to make merry while earth was so thirsty and disgruntled. The mother of all water droplets moved closer to the peering hole and peered down to the earth. With all the energy it could muster, earth lifted its eyes and looked up at the clouds. It saw mother rain wearing a long face that bespoke of the compassion it felt towards poor earth. With one last snap at the nerves, it lifted its arms and pleaded earnestly with mother rain to send at least two of its children to wet its cracked lips.

The children heard this plea of the earth to mother rain and, out of an uncontrollable ‘goodwill’ emotion, pushed their mother with all their might down to the earth through the peeping hole in the clouds. The children followed suit.

Great rumbles and arguments ensued as the droplets fought to get a chance to jump to the earth. The earth, in return, gave a belch as a sure sign of the respite brought about by the ‘goodwill’ action. Its intestines came to life once more as water washed down every dirt and dust on its path.

Satisfied, it raised one of its hands to signify that the droplets could now stop jumping from the clouds and that it was very grateful. The droplets misunderstood this motion of the hand and came tumbling down a million fold.

Fear set in. Great fear. The earth foresaw the repercussions of being misunderstood. It tried to open its mouth to speak but as it parted its lips water gushed in; so all the sound it could make was a muffle as more water made rushed down the gullet. In essence, nothing could deter the rain droplets from jumping off the clouds. Rumbles traversed the lengths of the sky as more water inundated the face of the earth.

Rain clouds were all smiles as they gleefully jumped from the opening in the clouds. Least did they know that by doing so they were endangering the life of their friend, earth.

The inhabitants of the face of the earth called this ridiculous jumping of rain droplets from the clouds EL-NINO. Whatever that means I know not! But I know how it came about.

You know this rain thing left a number of things in its wake. People came down with coughs and colds. Their shoes were left in a horrible mess. They were gaping, yawning, name it. People died and houses were either destroyed or their roofs blown off. All these things wrought by the rain meant that the inhabitants of the earth had to dive into their pockets to buy medicine and also ‘cajole’ the cobblers to restore their shoes to their once good condition. New houses had to be built and the dead had to be buried.

One question was clearly written on their scowled foreheads: Why did it have to rain with such continuity here while there were places that needed water of such immensity more than us guys? The Sahara, for example!

That’s why, in one last bid to rave mad, they cooked up a name that befit this midsummer madness: EL-NINO. I think it’s a misnomer but let it rest at that.