Yesterday, the summer rain struck Thiruvananthapuram city with the fury of thunder and lightning and wind. Those of us whose hearts are in that small protest-space in front of the State Secretariat open to the skies, where the police forbid even a temporary tarpaulin shelter, trembled as lightning tore through the skies and the skies poured, each drop a bucket. The striking workers continued to sit under the branches of old trees by the roadside. What if one of those ageing branches collapsed? What if lightning struck? The roads filled up with rainwater rapidly. The workers sat with their feet in the rushing rivulets of rainwater on the ground under the branches of great old trees, with the lightning swishing above.