Time heals everything?

“Time heals everything. But the time isn't over yet."

"How long did it take you to heal?"

"I'll let you know, once the healing is done.”

-S.D.Simper

Painting by Vijay Patil

I love to travel, but this is not a piece of new information for all the people who know me as friends or even as acquaintances. What few people know is that I prefer unexplored places over commercialized locations, OR if the places are still 'known', I prefer an unexplored route to travel.

One such 'lesser-known' destination I visited recently was Velas. Velas is a beautiful, untouched, and pristine village located in the Ratnagiri district of Maharashtra, basically Konkan.

This quiet village springs to life differently during the months of March to May, as they invite travelers to witness their very own - Velas Turtle Festival. An event when the eggs of Olive Ridley turtles are hatched and the small turtles are safely released to the sea. It's beautiful to watch these tiny livings walking through the beach and taking their first journey into the sea.

I, along with a bunch of my friends visited Velas in the month of April. The uniqueness, rather the beauty of this place is that it gets as rustic as one can imagine. Simple homestays, authentic cultural food, modest hosts, a friendly aura at its peak. One of the best places to experience 'Slow Travel'.

On one of the nights, we had the privilege to sit with our host - Siddhi, who decided to share some village incidents with us. She picked to narrate about the time when Konkan was worst affected by floods, and Velas in particular was facing issues with one of the strongest storms of their time.

In the month of January, all the coastal areas of Konkan were informed about the possibility of heavy rainfall which could lead to floods. In most of the areas, measures were already taken accordingly. Velas, in spite of being closer to the coast, did not remotely show any possibility of flood, so people were comparatively relaxed. Life was normal, and as a usual weekend, they continued with their gatherings and social events of getting together with neighbors. Suddenly, late in the evening, they heard a clap of thunder around, at first they ignored it and some of them only decided to take a look around when the intensity of the sound grew louder and louder. When a few of them peeked outside to check, they were shocked to see the largest storms they had ever imagined approaching them. Absolutely helpless, they decided to vacate the house with a fear that the intensity of the storm would possibly collapse the rooftops. They divided themselves into three groups, one would take shelter in the side bungalow (the only cement structure in the village), the second group would stay inside a van, and the third group, the males, would stay close to another house's verandah, to keep a watch on the approaching storm and inform the others quickly.

In no time, the storm appeared very close, the intensity and speed were such that by now half of the village houses were destroyed to rubble. Siddhi's house itself was being shattered to pieces as she could only stand far away and watch her humble abode getting destroyed, one brick at a time. Siddhi narrated the entire incident in a single breath, but the part when she narrated the moment of watching her own house crumble, brought a crack to her voice. She further mentioned, how they stood by the van with all their willpower and how they almost thought they lost the battle when the storm made the van move violently making the herd of people hold it with further strength and pull it downwards so it won't leave the ground.

It was a matter of a few seconds but the deadliest seconds and every single moment felt like an eternity. After some time, everything grew quiet. The storm subsided, and people opened their eyes only to realize they were alive and awake. The happiness of staying alive too was short-lived when they looked around to see every possible house and harvesting crops that they had put their blood and sweat into were destroyed. Except for the concrete house, nothing survived, some houses were completely shattered while some were irreparably damaged. One of the main sources of livelihood of the village is their betel nut trees, which sadly too were either fully or partially damaged.

Siddhi then went on to explain how particularly upset she was about her betel nut trees, of the entire farm only two trees survived, betel nut trees need a lot of time to reap fruits, once planted, they take about 12 to 20 years to bear their first fruit and Siddhi realized with the look of her two surviving betel nut plants, she was forcefully put 15 years behind, her livelihood was miserably affected.

A few days into the incident, the villagers gathered together to discuss future steps and to motivate each other, some of them said to Siddhi "Look we have no TIME to sit by and mourn, what we have in our hands is the future that we can shape, get going, forget what happened and let's reconstruct everything brick by brick".

Every villager even if exhausted was fairly motivated by the words. They decided to get together and begin the construction of the houses, damaged electric poles, and farm plantations, helping and motivating each other. In no time, they got the entire village on its feet. Siddhi sparkled with pride when she explained how they brought their village to life and fairly recovered from the storm.

Siddhi said, "We were able to revive everything in a time of 4 months, the electricity was back, the houses were re-constructed and painted again. Uprooted trees were planted. The only upsetting thing to me is it will still take 2 years for the betel nut to complete its healing and start again"

Out of curiosity, I asked, "What do you mean by 'complete its healing'?"

Siddhi replied, "Plants don't recover through trauma quickly, since the storm has affected them, they would at least need 2 YEARS TIME to heal and then bear fruits again"

What Siddhi spoke after that was all blurry, as I stopped by and pondered.

The betel nut takes 2 years just to HEAL from a trauma it has witnessed, during which it would do nothing, but take time and gather strength for years to survive.

This makes me wonder, at what point did we humans forget to live outside the clock, when did we forget that even we need to heal before we start again and at what point did it stop occurring that time does not heal anything on its own, that's not what the proverb means, the proverb probably suggests that ONLY TIME CAN HEAL EVERYTHING.

IT IS OKAY to Take time off your usual things, take time to be with yourself, take your time to sit down, take your time off other responsibilities, prioritize your mind, do things you love, win over your hurt, soothe your trauma and spring bring back, only to bear fruits like never before because TIME HEALS EVERYTHING?