[Reader-list] Bombay Floods, Prashant Pandey

Fri Jul 29 22:33:45 IST 2005

 Hi all 

I hope you all are doing well. Well I want
to share my experience of the Bombay flood. 
This is quite long but i am sure you will 
like it. 

Before I do so I hope everybody from Sarai
community esp. our people in Bombay
Deboshree,
Ankur, Kaiwan, Madhavi,Pankaj, Shai,Lakshmi

everybody is fine. 

It starts with a simple miscalculation.
Its 2.30 pm. 25 th july. I have a research 
appointment at Bandra. Outside,  its
raining. I think its just like any other 
routine rain. 

So I come out with my umbrella and a small
polythene bag containing a  notebook and 
other stuff. Its raining very hard. There 
is a mountain just behind our society and
muddy water is flowing high and  wild. 
I think that the rain will subside so I
take a short cut to the main Road i.e L.B.S
marg ( lal bahadur shashtri road), a very
prominent road which runs parallel to the 
central line in Bombay. 

2.45 pm Shreyas cinema Ghatkopar west

I manage to get an auto for Bandra
the auto
wallah ignores the commuters who are trying
to hitch a ride. We have come to the Thane-VT 
highway. Now I see rains all over. I am inside
the auto and I am all wet. Near VidyaVihar
flyover the auto comes to a standstill. I
complain  I should have taken the  train.
Auto-driver replies, Trains are not running 
since morning For the first time realize what 
mess I have gotten into. I lose patience
pay up
whatever fare and stand on the flyover looking 
at speeding cars and trucks. 

3.30 pm VidyaVihar Flyover 

I triple on a bike with two funny guys who are 
going to Dharavi. They tell me that Bandra is 5
minutes walk from Dharavi. I still think that 
the rains will stop in some time. I get down at 
Dharavi after having witnessed some great biking 
( avoiding skidding and traffic policemen). 

5.30 pm Dharavi 

There is traffic jam that slowly unravels.
Its huge and extends all over. 
Road to dadar
full. Road to sion
full
.road 
to bandra
full. 
I leave my second auto. Now I am walking with
thousands of women, men, girls and boys. I am 
stuck and there is no going back. I decide to 
go for my appointment at Carter Road. So from
Dharavi I walk to Carter Road. Trees have 
fallen down. I see cars going down. There is
lot of sound that I hear.  Shouts
cat calls
hooting. 

7.30 pm Carter Road

I am three hours late
but this looks like a
calamity. Isnt it? I take out my phone to
call up the person who I went to see. Guess

my phone looks like a water game (the kinds 
that they sell in trains). So I cancel my plans

9 pm
Bandra Station  (West )

I decide to stay at Bandra Station like 
everybody. But once I see it. I cant.  
Bandra station is badly flooded and is 
swelling with people. I meet a lady and a 
young man. All of us want to go to areas 
that are on the central line- Sion( lady),
Ghatkopar(myself) and  Thane(young man). 
We persuade an auto driver who chooses to 
listen to us only amidst 20 other commuters 
yelling at him the places they want to go. 
Barely 10 meters has the auto moved towards 
Bandra east flyover, we find ourselves in 
the most bizarre traffic jam in the universe.
Its amorphous, purposeless, dark and unending.
part of this jam is constituted by people
who are watching theirs cars and motorcycles
go down in water some 15 meters way. 
Its like star gazing when they tell
each other thats my car  

11 pm Between Bandra West & East 

Back in auto
the lady who is a school teacher
has lost it. She is breathing heavily. I get
a man to call her relatives who stay nearby.
( everybody shared drinking water and smiles 
but no mobile phones so this was a great
gesture on that mans part)  A miracle happens-
the call consummates with out any pee-pee or
getting cut. However the lady is troubled 
because she hasnt met these relatives for
8-9 years. She tells me,  kabhi jaroorat 
nahi padi . her husband had called up her 
school and  left this phone  number.  

I propose a grand plan of walking to Sion.
She rejects it while the young man is 
thinking about it. I come up with another
plan, We will walk to Bandra Kurla Complex
( home for state-of-the art but now flooded
offices)  and stay in ICICI like others.
We cannot, later I learn, as there is almost
5 ft of water to be crossed.  I believe it
this piece of information.  Before anything
happens the lady is out of the auto and has 
left without paying(?) the autowalla. 

This auto-walla  has the most quixotic plan.
He wants to take an unimaginable U-turn and 
come back to Bandra Station and take S.V road
( Swami Vivekanand Road). He would take us to
Andheri (east) and then to Ghatkopar through 
Marol Naka. This auto wallah is a sadist. (I 
had heard two hours back that 12 kids died in 
Marol and Andheri was hell with its gutters.)
Though he plays us some remixes blaring with 
a ghoom ghoom sound from the damp speakers 
and I give him my cellphone to warm it in 
some heated quarter of his auto. He opens a
box and keeps it there. 

Now this young man and I
both are trying out 
life in this wet auto. We try to sleep (a fake
put-on form of sleep), discuss cricket and two
hours later come to a conclusion that  this auto 
wallah is cheating us. Ye Behen**** humko shendi
laga raha hai The auto wallah is merrymaking 
with other taxi drivers. So we decide to leave
the auto and find way on our own. We pay up
after the customary mutual allegations. We 
tell him that we cannot pay 100 rupees for 
nothing. He is a marathi yet to defeat him I 
ask him, are you from Delhi The auto driver 
is wondering at our unity. I give him 70 rupees
for taking us 10 meters away from the point 
where we actually boarded the auto. 

2 am Bandra east 

We have decided we will walk to Sion. There 
are lots of people who strongly dissuade us. 
There are jokes, discussions and kissagoi
(storytelling)  in 3 feet water climbing upto
our thighs. I want to get out of this gorgonic
jam. I tell him all these are middle class 
losers who are stuck with their cars with their
fat wives and we dont have any (cars and wives)
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