[Reader-list] Bombay Floods, Prashant Pandey

Rahul Asthana rahul_capri at yahoo.com
Sun Jul 31 03:05:35 IST 2005 

This was a nice write up.
Here's another.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4724245.stm
And finally here is an article in marathi.
http://maharashtratimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1185064.cms
Somebody paraphrased it for me-
"This article is talking about Tuesday's heavy rain &
effect in Mumbai.In short, trying to say that Mumbai
city & municipal corporation  is responsible for this
kind of problems. To make money, they are allowing
construction by reclaiming land, which should not have
done.Poor citizens are paying for it."
--- Prashant Pandey <prashantpandey10 at rediffmail.com>
wrote:

>  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 it’s 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. Isn’t 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 can’t.  
> 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. 
> It’s like star gazing when they tell
> each other “that’s 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 hasn’t 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 don’t have any (cars and wives)
> > _________________________________________
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