The deluge that was

It is that time of the year again the time when the municipal authorities have started admitting that the rain management is still not under control. and mumbai can flood again if it rains hard ...reminding us of the torrential tuesday of 26/7/05. well to start with our help and good wishes be with all the ppl who lost their lives,health,belongings and homes in that merciless downpour .Just pray to God for everyone.
as everyone else .. i too have a tale to tell abt that tuesday ..and being me i d tell that for sure .. but then first of all .. i dont know if all of the numerologists were sleeping or got washed off in the rains ... but did anyone notice .. that it was 26th again .. yeah very much the horror date for India .. be it the tsunami, the gujarat earth quake or now the torrid downpour , all nature's wrath Hit India on 26th. just an observation .. there s nothing much into it for sure ..( i dont hope the cabinet wud setup a committee to investigate the 26th phenomenon) .just a coincidence i guess
anyways ..my story ,,well i had college on tuesday just like most of the days of the week, thankfully we had lectures upto 3 only ..but then one of my friends cleared his KT exams that day ( we all know what joy that is ) so he treated us to nice chinese food in the canteen ( i hate china even more now ) and we ended up staying till 4 in coll .. and by then the rain d got heavy and by heavy i mean 1000 kgs heavy .. and being the yuppie youth .. 15 of us decided to get .. drenched in the downpour and walk upto reclamation to enjoy the rains ( i m still looking for the dude who gave the suggestion :P)well we did enjoy the water clogs and torrentiality of rains for arnd 30 mins and boy what amazing 30 mins .. our bags were parked into two cars and we had arnd 5 bikes .. well at 5 everyone started panicking as the smsS of the jammed bombay started pouring in ...( we all knew that the trains had halted but then we had cars and bikes )anyways .. we made headway then ...and as soon as we reached the bandra flyover at ONGC ....the w.e highway ahead was jampacked ...with water everywhere arnd the flyover .. we knew we were stuck .. 10 of us including the girls were trasported to a friend s house nearby .. and since the carowner friend of ours refused to leave his car on the flyover ( the dumbhead thot that .. it d be towed when the rain stops .)
6 of us decided to stay with him and get the car parked at a safer place .. which was nowhere offcourse .. anyways we right turned from the next signal at kherwadi all in knee deep water .. and parked the car at chetana college ,,,it was 7 by then .. one of the 6 of us .. stayed very closeby .. but we didnt have the keys to his place ..since we thot it d be a long night .. we decided to have our dinner at the only open restaurent .. the biryani was the only hot thing abt the day :P,... anyways we started walking upto the place at 8 after calling home,the bags and other things ( apart from wallets and cellphones) were left in the car... the water had now come to our waist level and we walked for one hr wading water .. ( it generally is a 10 min walk ) to reach his place .. his flat was on ground floor ...anyways .. we had to break the lock and get in .. we changed into his clothes and made ourselves comfy .. while we were chatting away .. at 11 .. bad luck struck again and water started coming into his house from everywhere .. ( first time i saw water coming out of the commode :P)we had to make everything at his place safe from water .. and then we decided to evacuate the place and walk to another frend s place who again lived 10 mins away ( yeah .. tell me )...anyways .. we changed to our wet clothes again .. took the dry clothes with us .. and walked in chest deep water now ....the night was amazingly bright that night ...as we walked again .. noone was joking thou .. very few words were spoken .. as everyone probly wanted to reach sumwhere as fast as they cud ..we saw a provision store open .. with water inside .. we asked for biscuits .. the guy said we cud buy if we had exact change .. just then .. the counter of his shop ..started draining awy with the current and he had to run behind it .. the biscuits were never to be ... well we had to go thru the service road off the highway .. the scenes on the highway were .. unblvable .. i had never seen so many ppl walking thru on the highway .. it was a mad rush to neverland ...cars were abandoned and flooded all over....anyways .. we had to walk .. one of my friends.. kept abusing the rains all along ..( i wonder whether that angered the raingods)we saw a small tabela along the way .. with a solitary buffalo .. mooing and stuck in clogged waters .. we felt sorry and helpless for the buffalo ..( just hope that she wasnt among the 1000 buffaloes dead in the city that day ) ...we reached our new destination at arnd 11:30.. and right next to his building .. it was neck deep water .. well ...we got in and heaved a sigh of relief and ran towards the fourth floor .....as he opened the door .. there were 10 ppl already in his house .. and we were welcomed ..we reunited with one of our friends who had gone to king s circle and then walked upto bandra to this place .. we were treated to much desired biscuits again ...( the only food at his place ) no electricity and two bottles of water ...was all we had ..anyways .. we started talking and joking again .. it was happy faces again .. some of us still cudnt blv .. whether it was happening to bombay .. we were worried abt other ppl .. tried to call up many of them but then cudnt ..one of our friends with his car had started alone ..at 4 and was stuck in bandra when he called last ...he was spending the night in his car .. my sister was stuck in andheri ...we tried to sleep .. 5 ppl on a bed .. one on the chair and two ppl down .. the bedbugs ..never wud have thot they cud be so ineffective as we slept .. well till 4 am ( water cud be so tiring )we were woken up by one of our frends at 4 .. who saw the traffic moving on the highway ,,,,,we cud hear the sounds of the water flowing ..some said it was raining harder and some said it was water draining out .. ( the positive ones kept saying that it d be all clear by 10 tomorow ) while the pessimists thot we were stuck here for 3 more days ...anyways.. we slept again .. after talking to our friend who was still stuck in his car on the highway .......
we got up at 7 again ... hearing the voices .. saying .. "Phat gaya .. phat gaya ".. welll amidst all imaginative thinking .. we found out that .. the one litre milk that was our last hope ...for a refreshing tea in the morning .. woh bhi phat gaya.. anyways necessity is the mother of invention and .. one of us made the tastiest black tea ever ..with everyone giving suggestions abt what goes into a black tea .. ranging from nimbu to namak to what not .. most of the ppl decided not to have the black tea ...at arnd 8 .. three of us including me decided that we shld be heading home now .. coz we cudnt stay with no food,no water and no electricity .. the 4 other friends thot that was a stupid idea and for the first time .. we had a standoff of sorts ..we tried convincing them but most of them ( the pessimists )thot its better here .. and they were anyways tired with all the walking thru water last night and didnt wanna do that again ...
well it was a very difficult decision since we had all been together thru this .. but three of us .. left the place at 8:30 after a breakfast of two biscuits .... it was neck deep water arnd the building again ,, the ground floor flats were half merged in water ... and it was a horrible sight with the furniture floating ...the other two friends ,,,stayed in parle and andheri .. and the parle guy was dead worried since his home was on ground floor and his mom was home alone ...so we walked upto the highway wading chest deep water again ..... well amazingly the highway was totally clear of water( at the most ankle high water ) ...there were cars and more cars .. and ppl and more ppl... we thot . and reassured that our decision to leave was the right one ...since the flyovers were built ..we were walking on them for the first time .. with ppl all arnd .. laughing, cheering each other on , telling stories.. the humour in harmony was amazing .. with some ppl cracking amazing jokes ...(someone talking abt the orange network breakdown told us that .. lagta hain orange ka kutta paani main beh gaya :P)we walked with packed hotels arnd vileparle , shutdown reliance energy building, the clogged airport ...for arnd hr and a half .. and parle guy s place at arnd 10 .. and he was very relieved to see that his place was totally all right .. his mom, uncle and cousin greeted us .. everyone had their stories to tell and everyone did ..his sis was still stuck in her office and so was his dad .. his mom had walked yesterday night from bandra west to her place......amazingly there was power at his place and one phone was working too .. we tried contacting our homes and the friends who were still in bandra .. but cudnt get thru ...
we had piping hottt maggie noodles and tea in breakfast ( i never liked maggie so much ever )..well at 11 ..me and the andheri guy decided to move on ...after thanking all ..
whilehe walked home .. i got a rick ride from andheri to my place for 50 bucks ..with three more ppl with me .. i reached home at arnd 12 .. and was relieved to see everyone and everything at home ...my sis had returned too .. i had lunch and slept for 3 hrs after telling my story to everyone at my place and hearing their stories ...
Life was limping back to normal ...
Cudnt help but not tell this story and .. cudnt help but not stretch it so long .. since i thot every story had a lesson for everyone ...there are lots of IFs and BUTs .. If we had moved out of college early that day, If we had left thecar and moved on , If we had not evacuated the overflowing apartment ... If ..
It brings out many technicalities abt how badly is this city planned ..or if it is planned at all .. and what are the authorities or the ppl doing to avoid this in future .. ther are lots of questions .. which will be asked for days to come ..
for now .. as we suffer the loss of arnd 5000 lives .. human and non human ...one shld just thank God that whereever we were .. we cud get thru the terrible day due to the resolve,spirit and cooperation and harmony that mumbai is ...there were more positives too .. the help and cooperation showed by ppl all arnd, the spirit and smiles ruled, the FM radio ,the truck rick and car walls offering lifts... and many more ..