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SAI International School
Grade-IX-English

Module 20- Weathering the Storm in Ersama
by Harsh Mander.

Introduction
This story written by Harsh Mander gives an account of the storm

that hit the coastal town of Ersama in Orissa in the year 1999. A
young boy Prashant faced the fury of the storm and reached his
village. The details of how he worked hard to help the villagers
overcome the devastation caused by the storm inspire us to have

courage and a positive approach towards life.

Lesson and Explanation

ON 27 October 1999, seven years after his mother’s death, Prashant
had gone to the block headquarters of Ersama, a small town in coastal
Orissa, some eighteen kilometers from his village, to spend the day with
a friend. In the evening, a dark and menacing storm quickly gathered.
Winds beat against the houses with a speed and fury that Prashant had
never witnessed before. Heavy and incessant rain filled the darkness,
ancient trees were uprooted and crashed to the earth. Screams rent the
air as people and houses were swiftly washed away. The angry waters
swirled into his friend’s house, neck deep. The building was of brick and
mortar and was strong enough to survive the devastation of the wind’s
velocity of 350 km per hour. But the cold terror of the family grew with
the crashing of trees that had got uprooted and fallen on their house,
sometime in the middle of the night, damaging its roof and walls.

Menacing: dangerous and harmful
Fury: extreme strength
Incessant: unceasing, continuous
Ancient: old
Rent: filled
Swirled: moved or flowed along with a whirling motion
Mortar: a mixture of lime, cement, sand and water used to construct
buildings

Prashant was a native of a village in the coastal state of Odisha. On 27
October 1999, he was on a visit to a friend in Ersama which is a small
town in Odisha and a block headquarters in Jagatpura district. His
village was at a distance of eighteen kilometers from Ersama. He had
lost his mother seven years ago. That day, a strong storm gathered in