The word rain, like love, is both a noun and a verb. Sometimes you can sit in it, but you can also use it to take action. However, lately, with the toxic haze enveloping much of Southeast Asia, a rainy day has become an answered prayer.
The land fires in Kalimantan, Indonesia, ravaged an area of almost two million hectares. The area is home to endangered wildlife and rainforests that used to supply fresh air to the region. The culprits are peatland drainage and land clearing for palm oil plantations.
Affluent neighbour Malaysia provides subsidies to farmers to encourage sustainable agriculture practices, but poorer Indonesian farm managers resort to quick slash-and-burn methods. It mostly comes down to poverty spawning all types of environmental ills: devastating deaths of wildlife, school closures and lung diseases impacting thousands.
It happens every year like clockwork, and we’re exhausted.
Here in Kuala Lumpur, my home away from home, I watch the grey haze swallow the city’s glittering towers. I wish for rain, delivered by nature or cloud seeding, not only to clear the sky but to extinguish the fires once and for all.
21 October, 2026.
“The word rain, like love, is both a noun and a verb.”
