The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.
Note: 1364 words – Completed in 1 h 26 minutes (brainstorming + writing) – typed version with minor grammatical edits made (originally handwritten on 8 September, 2024)
Noah led the last sheep onto the boat, shutting the door behind him. As he sealed the edges of the door, he let out a sigh of relief. His work was complete. Soon, the rains began. God pummeled the earth with water from the heavens relentlessly. Soon, the whole world was flooded. All the sinners had been wiped out. Just Noah, his family and a pair of animals of each species remained on his ark.
Whether you believe this story of Noah from the Bible or not, you must admit that it holds innumerable lessons for humanity. The most important among them, however, is that of preparation – the understanding that the best time to mend your ways & strengthen your roof is when the sun is beaming overhead, not when the skies darken & the storm arrives.
What does this term “repair your roof” mean, however? It is simply an expression of the need to plug holes and fix mistakes while you still can. It indicates that one must build their strength and prepare for the daunting, unpredictable challenges that lie ahead.
Why is it, however, that this task of preparing for unforeseen circumstances must be done when the sun is shining? To answer this, we must realize that a shining sun simply indicates favourable conditions. You cannot fix a leaking roof after the thunderstorm begins & the rain starts entering your humble abode. Similarly, you cannot prepare for a problem or adversity instantly once it arrives.
The best time to prepare for the challenge is the time leading up to it. This is because the stakes are lower in preparation than the actual battle. For centuries, kingdoms have been preparing their armies for war. As Chanakya advocated in his “Arthashashtra”, a kingdom’s army must be kept prepared to face future threats through regular training and military exercises. This ancient wisdom was not lost upon the modern-day leaders. Countries like India regularly conduct military exercises with countries like the US, UK, France, Australia, Israel, etc. Each branch of the Armed Forces trains rigorously to prepare for upcoming battles – whether it be terrorism, piracy, espionage, cyberattacks, conventional attacks, or nuclear warfare. India learnt the hard way in 1962 that you cannot repair the chinks in your armour when the enemy shows up at your doorstep, like China did. The lessons from that war were learned & worked upon, which won us the wars with Pakistan in 1965, 1971, and 1999. We carried them forward into the 21st century by bolstering our military capabilities.
However, does the war always have to be the conventional kind? Not at all. The fight may be against the fury of nature, too. Natural threats like cyclones, cloudbursts, landslides, earthquakes, fires, explosions, gas leaks, or floods may occur anytime. However, what makes a threat or a hazard a disaster is the preparation done beforehand. If the groundwork to minimize the effects of the threat is laid already, many lives can be saved when the threat actually shows up. That is why India learnt from the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami & created a National Disaster Management strategy. It created an ecosystem to train & equip a world class NDRF (National Disaster Response Force), SDRFs in each state & a responsive NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) to coordinate disaster responses (along with SDMAs and DDMAs). When disasters strike, like the floods in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh & Telangana in August 2024, these well-trained forces are ready to save lives & minimize the damage. Early warning systems for cyclones have saved an unimaginable number of lives in the past decade due to effective evacuation protocols & search & rescue protocols during the cyclones.
Can this idea of preparing for future adversities be applied in other domains of human lives too? Of course. Sportsmen are the epitome of training & readying themselves for future battles. People like Usain Bolt train day after day, maintaining proper diets, sleep cycles, and grueling training regimens. They go through these arduous routines so that when the opportunities come, they can give it their all. 4 years of training to run 9:58 seconds. That is the epitome of preparing to be the best.
This concept is not limited to individual sports but also team sports like cricket. Every team member trains & strengthens not only their individual skills but also their collective performance, readying themselves to execute on the field like a well-oiled machine. In a Test match, a batsman must have honed their batting skills, prepared for any situation in the nets, so when they take guard (whether at 353/2 or 6/4), they are ready to play according to the demands of the situation. They must be prepared to attack the bowlers and consolidate their lead or defend, survive, and rotate strike to take their team to a respectable total.
Another crucial, often overlooked aspect emerges in the field of medical science. Vaccination as a process is fundamentally based on the idea of readying the body to fight a future illness. A weakened form of the pathogen, its part (e.g. a viral protein), or an inactivated form is introduced into the body during ideal conditions (i.e. when the person or animal is not sick). The body treats the introduced pathogen as a real one & triggers an immune response, preparing antibodies & remembering that particular pathogen for when it shows up again. When the real disease strikes, the body is fully prepared to fight & neutralize it.
A unique, marvelous phenomenon occurs in the UK, not in the field of medical science, but politics. It is called the shadow cabinet. Each member of the Cabinet of the ruling party government is “shadowed” by a “Shadow Cabinet Minister” from the opposition party. The shadow ministers not only criticize the policies & decisions of their corresponding ruling government ministers, but they also propose alternative policies & suggestions. In doing so, they prepare themselves in a relatively low-stakes situation for the future scenario when they will be in the ruling government. This institution worked flawlessly in 2024 when Rishi Sunak’s Conservative Party in the UK lost the elections, allowing Keir Starmer’s Labour Party to take over with some prior experience of managing government policies as shadow ministers. This is a prime example of effective & peaceful transfer of power to a new, capable government in a democracy.
We must realize, however, that some situations in life occur so suddenly that it is almost impossible to prepare for them. Japan in 1945 during World War 2 was expecting some retaliation after they bombed Pearl Harbor. They had air defense systems and air raid sirens in place. They had repaired their roofs when the sun was shining. And yet, one fine morning, a nuclear bomb named “Fat Man” fell from the skies & vaporized the city of Hiroshima. The same thing happened a few days later in Nagasaki. They did not have time to repair their roof.
Similarly, some situations occur where you must instantly respond during the disaster. When an earthquake occurs without warning, it levels whole cities within minutes, sometimes seconds. No matter how much preparation is done beforehand, a strong earthquake can bring down cities like a house of cards. What remains afterwards is the rubble, which must be removed as quickly as possible to save the people.
Yet, all hope is never lost. Humanity clings onto hope even in the worst of situations. It finds a way to do damage control & survive. When the tunnel in Uttarkashi collapsed in 2023 and several workers were trapped inside, it seemed hopeless. Yet, through coordinated rescue efforts, the workers survived inside the collapsed rubble for days & eventually made it out alive. Such is the power of humanity’s willpower. We prepare as much as we can for the worst and are ready to tackle the challenge headfirst when it arrives. However, even when we aren’t ready, with chinks in our armour, we still fight on. Like Rishabh Pant fighting it out on the cricket field (despite a broken elbow) to win the match & series for India at the Gabba in 2021, humanity fights on even when the odds are against us.
