Cyclone Tauktae has pummelled India’s western coasts from Kerala and Tamil Nadu to Maharashtra and Gujarat. It is the first major cyclone to originate in the Arabian Sea, long considered peaceful, this year. India has a record of cyclones since 1891. The conventional wisdom in climatology puts the average number of cyclones building in the north Indian Ocean at five in a year. Only one of the five usually emerges in the Arabian Sea.