Well,its not raining in my neighbourhood
most of mumbai might have gone underwater (with no help from global warming) but you wouldn't guess it in my locality. where i live(southern tip of the city), it hasn't rained for the last 7-8 hours, the roads never got flooded,traffic flowed as usual,the most efficient power supply(BEST) in the whole damn country didn't trip up even once,phones were working and i even managed to go and have a haircut. in short, i had no fun over the last two days. i have no fascinating stories to relate about my experiences on the day parts of mumbai received 94cm of rain(highest single day rain ever recorded in this country) but since i am a sucker for such stories myself(and i hope you are too) i will relate to you the adventures of my friend AA who returned home this evening after 36 hours .
AA leaves home on tuesday morning at 7a.m. to go to college in andheri(about 20 k.m from his house on altamount road),gets there without any hassles and when college gets over at 3 he thinks he can get back as easily.but the roads in andheri are now flooded and he has to wade through knee-deep water to get to andheri local station. on reaching there, he finds out that the locals have stopped and he can't get home. the cell networks are down, the power(Reliance Energy) has gone off in the whole area, nearby buildings are all flooded including those of his friends, food is hard to find and very expensive( a soggy banana for 20 bucks). with nowhere to go, he decides to spend the night at the only place with some lighting-the railway station where he can only sit on the ground packed like a sardine. after a sleepless night, he decides to return to his college where he finds tons of arbitrary people who spent the night in the classrooms.the canteen's been cleaned out...nothin to eat there and nothin to eat anywhere around. he now decides to go to the international airport hoping that there'll be some transport from there. after wading through now-waist deep water, he gets there to find out that there is no hope there...the W.E. highway is flooded till waist height with tons of cars stranded...its early afternoon...he's hungry and wet...when he makes the fateful decision...to walk(or is it wade) it home.he starts his journey...on the way he encounters a foreigner in a business suit who just abandons his jacket(immediately picked up by someone else)because its weighing him down...another one who'd even got rid of his shirt..and his trousers, he sees a bus but the driver tells him he's been sitting there for 25 hours, and a dead body with rotting skin hanging from a pole. near mahim,the water is head high so he has to clamber up on the top of a truck and travel on it. somewhere around 6p.m. he finally staggers into his house and after a long bath and a hot meal, he's telling his story to a very inquisitive friend. he's very pissed and very bitter but his friend instead of being sympathetic can't suppress a grin during most of the story. finally, the friend asks him
"did you have an umbrella". AA, unfortunately, doesn't find this very amusing.
AA leaves home on tuesday morning at 7a.m. to go to college in andheri(about 20 k.m from his house on altamount road),gets there without any hassles and when college gets over at 3 he thinks he can get back as easily.but the roads in andheri are now flooded and he has to wade through knee-deep water to get to andheri local station. on reaching there, he finds out that the locals have stopped and he can't get home. the cell networks are down, the power(Reliance Energy) has gone off in the whole area, nearby buildings are all flooded including those of his friends, food is hard to find and very expensive( a soggy banana for 20 bucks). with nowhere to go, he decides to spend the night at the only place with some lighting-the railway station where he can only sit on the ground packed like a sardine. after a sleepless night, he decides to return to his college where he finds tons of arbitrary people who spent the night in the classrooms.the canteen's been cleaned out...nothin to eat there and nothin to eat anywhere around. he now decides to go to the international airport hoping that there'll be some transport from there. after wading through now-waist deep water, he gets there to find out that there is no hope there...the W.E. highway is flooded till waist height with tons of cars stranded...its early afternoon...he's hungry and wet...when he makes the fateful decision...to walk(or is it wade) it home.he starts his journey...on the way he encounters a foreigner in a business suit who just abandons his jacket(immediately picked up by someone else)because its weighing him down...another one who'd even got rid of his shirt..and his trousers, he sees a bus but the driver tells him he's been sitting there for 25 hours, and a dead body with rotting skin hanging from a pole. near mahim,the water is head high so he has to clamber up on the top of a truck and travel on it. somewhere around 6p.m. he finally staggers into his house and after a long bath and a hot meal, he's telling his story to a very inquisitive friend. he's very pissed and very bitter but his friend instead of being sympathetic can't suppress a grin during most of the story. finally, the friend asks him
"did you have an umbrella". AA, unfortunately, doesn't find this very amusing.
posted by citizensavage | 11:02 AM
2 Comments:
nice personal account of the floods man. it was enlightening for guys like me who have always lived in bangalore and the city hasn't seen a natural disaster in its history!*touch wood*
nice to know you are safe and sound. btw can you swim?
the thing that really pisses me off is when "certain" ppl tend to trivialise major issues of concern in their local environment & live in a world so far removed from their own (i mean this blogger's fixation with all things anglo-american)that they can only spew cliches like "anything that doesn't kill u can only make u stronger" & "every1 should have an such an experience once in a lifetime"...
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