Shreya Sen-Handley | Can A Storm Herald The Good Winds Of Change?

A wet and windy September has set in here in England, making it an uphill climb from hereonwards to keep that chin up, rather than sunken in swaddling layers, as we wade towards the clag of winter. After one of the hottest and driest summers on record (which brings its own burdens, but a lack of sunshine ain’t one), we’re braced for an abundance of blustery rains this autumn.

Which may not be unusual in Britain, but the intriguing new names these storms have been christened with are indeed quite novel. At least one of which, ‘Chandra’, isn’t a conventional Christian handle by any means, word as it is for the moon in Sanskrit-based languages. And the moon does in fact influence the elements, turning tides and brightening skies nightly. Yet, a storm named thus, conspicuous in the crowd of Eddies and Erins and Daves, heralds winds of change on multiple levels.

Britain, after all, is painfully conservative with monikers. Royal names are particular favourites, with ‘George’ regaining popularity with new parents since the 2013 birth of Prince William and Kate’s firstborn. Whilst Lily is an oft-given name to girl children, reminiscent of Queen Elizabeth’s pet name of Lilibet. Generation after generation in this country boast the same names, with many of them conferred as tributes to forefathers (a form of ancestor worship, though they’d gut you rather than admit it!). To label something significant, therefore, with a name as alien to the Brits as ‘Chandra’, is a portent of positive, inclusive evolution!

The British are so resistant to change, they’ll blithely ignore a majority vote if it’s at odds with tradition. In 2016, for example, the public were invited to name a polar research ship of national importance, but the popular votes piled up for a sobriquet that was both funny and irreverent, namely Boaty McBoatface (restoring our faith in the famed British wit). A red-faced government body then declared it unsuitable, calling the ship RRS Sir David Attenborough, after Britain’s beloved nonagenarian naturalist, instead. But the man has a sense of humour even if the stuffed shirts in government don’t, and I reckon, left up to him, he would have plumped for the designation of Boaty over David (and not just for the vessel)!

In fact, not only do stately institutions in these convention-mired isles, and the average George as well, cling to the staid and dreary, the winds of change, when at all in play, appear to be blowing the wrong way! Towards bigoted, self-serving ends, and the UK ain’t alone there. You don’t have to look much farther than the rise of Trump (another term for noxious bodily breezes in Britain), and his global legions of climate-catastrophe-denying, human-rights-annihilating, right-wing adherents, gleefully undermining international efforts to avert the now-certain ecological Armageddon, even though it hastens our own extinction. Go figure. No, really do.

Human dignity has also been decimated to such a degree, that people are now being detained, deported, tortured, starved and slaughtered without consequence or protest (stifled as it has been as well), and that too in so-called democracies! A chilling instance of what we’ve become is the genocide in Gaza that rumbles on, without restraints imposed or reprisals against its perpetrator and its powerful chums.

Not to forget the vicious racism and sexism the marginalised face every day, and the money being diverted into billionaires’ pockets that could have housed, fed, clothed and educated the impoverished millions buckling under the weight of our shiny sham of a politico-economic system. These lethal gales have blown us off course to the extent that the earth seems to have been wrenched from its naturally altruistic axis.

Weather (oops, whither) the hope and harmony, the rekindling of freedom and repudiation of tyranny, of the mid-to-late 20th century? Back then, ‘Winds of Change’ weren’t globe-engulfing gusts of poisonous gases emanating from a truly odious orange person and his monstrous minions. They weren’t even upending forces of nature, the impersonal fury of which is more forgivable, but a zeitgeist-capturing anthem released in 1990 by German band The Scorpions, the uplifting melody of which made it eminently sing-along-able. Celebrating the felling of a wall that tore a nation apart, it spoke to us all, “Did you ever think/That we could be so close, like brothers? The future’s in the air/I can feel it everywhere…”

Yet, a mere three decades later, barriers to understanding around the world are springing back up.

But the battle isn’t irredeemably lost. If spearheading isn’t your gig, there are still people worth supporting, from climate activist Greta Thunberg to New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, to grassroots leaders of progressive, sustainable living across this distressed planet. Liking them as people shouldn’t be prerequisites, as it’s their urgent causes we need to rally around.

Zohran’s mom, of course, is one of us — Indian filmmaker Mira Nair, which takes me back to winds and torrents, and Monsoons once again. I mentioned in this column last month that I was a Monsoon child, but the month of my birth hasn’t made me a stormy petrel (or a Stormy Daniels, phew), because your birth-month doesn’t remotely influence your passage through the world — astrology fans, please note. Believe it or not, WE, the people, can still wrest back control of our destinies, away from the stars both real and trumpery. Instead of being haplessly, despairingly, buffeted by them, should we not ourselves become winds of positive, constructive change?

As Gandhi said — “Be the change you want to see…”