Why floods will always terrify me
It's one thing to watch images of a city facing floods on your television or computer screen; it's quite another to watch the scene live in front of your eyes, and be in it yourself. Ten years ago, on July 26, 2005, I was in exactly the same situation that many Chennai residents are finding themselves in now, and let me say, it was scary.
Back then, I lived in Mumbai and worked for India Today magazine.
On July 26, with my husband out of town for an off-site, I got up as usual, the rain hammering down. But then, anyone who lives in Mumbai doesn't even give rain in July a second thought. It's perfectly normal. As normal as it is for the local train to stop because of flooding in the tracks, for two to three days in the season, and for people to be unable to make it to work.
Anyhow, I had been asking the marketing head of a TV channel for an interview for several days and that morning he messaged to say that he was free to meet over lunch in Andheri. Since I lived in Santa Cruz, I figured I could do lunch (both are in the suburbs) and carry on to work at Nariman Point. I left with the car and the driver and reached my destination easily. The rain was continuous, but not ominous. At lunch though, the person I was with told me at least two to three times to not go to Nariman Point (in South Mumbai) because it had been raining non-stop; instead, he suggested I could work on some story on this side of town. I brushed off his advice but his persistence made me do a rethink. Here was a true blue Mumbaikar who probably knew what he was saying. I called office and told them I'd visit the gyms in my area instead for a story I was pursuing on fitness.
The next 30 minutes made it amply clear that this was not a regular day. The water kept welling up and I decided to head home instead. By the time I reached home, the car was almost swimming. I told the driver to go home, worried that his jhuggi would be flooded, and went upstairs to my fourth floor flat. The water was coming in from the windows. After mopping up, I tried making a few calls, but the signal was intermittent and soon it became impossible to get through to anyone. We had no landline. In 30 minutes, the electricity supply went off.
With nothing to do, I sat by the window and saw the road, now a river, swelling up and engulfing everything in its way. Men, women, and children from the temporary settlements nearby were leaving their homes and walking through the water with their belongings tied up in pieces of cloth. As I sat there and watched, helpless, the water level kept rising. By evening, the water was up to their shoulders and at one point all I could see were heads and the potlis above their heads.
In the midst of all this, I had managed to get the message across to my husband though my sister-in-law in Delhi that I was safe. Soon after the cellphone went dead and I couldn't charge it because the electricity supply hadn't come back. Neither could I watch TV. All alone, with candles for company - and you barely know your neighbours in Mumbai -I had nothing to do but go off to sleep.
I was woken up the next morning by a loud knock on the door. A friend and his wife had come to get me. They lived in the part of Bandra that was on relatively higher ground compared to Santa Cruz, and they told me of the state the city was in. I literally opened the cupboard, put in my jewellery, our passports, cash, some clothes, and left. Left my house. I had only ever seen this in films.
Once down, I went to the car park on the ground floor, and there was water inside till the steering wheel. There was nothing to do but leave it there. We rolled up our jeans and walked out; I shudder to think what we were wading through. We got to their car two blocks away, drove away to Bandra, then stopped and bought damp vegetables and bread on the way since we'd heard food shortages were imminent, and finally reached their home.
Only when they had switched on their TV, did I realise the scale of the damage. Soon, I charged my phone and got in touch with everyone. Stories were pouring in from people who had walked 32 km from their offices in Chembur to Bandra, of people who had to abandon their cars, of carcasses floating around. As journalists, all of us had to speak to people, write our personal accounts and report on this massive calamity. It was the pre-Twitter, pre-Facebook era.
That evening my husband returned to town and we moved back the next day, only to shift out again in panic two days later when the rain lashed unabated once again. Our car didn't even get picked up for repairs for almost six weeks (no garage had space, filled as they all were with cars for repairs) and we didn't get it back for three months. It was never the same. We would eventually sell it a few months down the line.
For weeks later, there were stories of how littering had blocked the drains, how the density of population in the suburbs had led to the tragedy (South Mumbai was barely affected, in comparison). The outbreak of leptospirosis and other diseases were real fears too.
I shifted out of Mumbai the next year, but that night will forever be etched in my memory. And as I recount this story, I can only pray for Chennai for I know how long it will take for the city to stand up again.