It was the evening of Monday
30th Nov. 2015. We had just returned from Pallavaram after escorting my niece Shyamala to her in-law’s
place. Right from Friday the 27th we had
been busy in connection with her marriage, what with the pandakkal, bride
anointment, bridal party welcome, Mappillai azhaippu. and the actual function
of marriage. As we rested that night, the rains started and was pouring
continuously all through next day. I
cancelled all my idea of going out to attend to some work before leaving for
Palani which was planned for that weekend and concentrated on completing the
uploading of Photos to Flickr and to Facebook when suddenly the lights went
off. Thank God I could complete the work
on hand running the laptop on battery, for electricity supply came back six
days later only. With no electricity, mobile phone could not be charged. So when the land-line went dead next morning we
were cut off from the outside world. We
could not bother about it at that time; for in the meantime the thoughtless act
of the authorities of opening the lake waters. without giving us any prior warning
had presented a bigger menace threatening life and property even in otherwise
safe places.
For the previous night, Government had increased to ten times the
release of water from Chembarampakkam Lake and that too at a high tide
time. The gushing waters breached the barrier wall in the banks near
Jafferkhanpet and waters rushed out of the breach inundating Jafferkhanpet,
parts of Ashok Nagar, K.K.Nagar and West Mambalam. The swirling waters from the
11th Avenue of Ashoknagar were rushing down the Kodambakkam
lane and this raised the water level in our street so much that water entered the ground
floor flats of our building. As the water started raising, filling the lift
well and the first three steps of the staircase, one family from ground-floor,
moved to our flat in the first floor and another family to a flat in
the second floor. The third family had fortunately vacated on 30th Nov.
to a new flat in second floor in an adjoining area. The family that moved with
us consisted of a young couple Rajamani @ Ganesh and Jaishree and Ganesh’s
mother as their two daughters were with Jaishree’s parents in a first floor
flat nearby. Ganesh’s mother, Lakshmi, who already knew Rajam, was a good company for
Rajam diverting her mind from the shortages and TV-less, Telephone-less
loneliness of darkness while Ganesh and Jaishree helped me to know other
residents of the building as I had been so far treating my flat as a retreat
during the days I stayed there. Further they brought with them the provisions
they could salvage from their flat before leaving, which pooled with ours could
help us to tide over the initial period without any serious problem.
We all watched from our
balcony the rising level of water with fear, anxiety and concern. As water
slowly rose covering the tyres, then doors and then the bonnet with only the
windshield visible in a parked car in our compound, our BP also rose. And lo !
it stopped at the ceiling of the car covering the wind-shield, but without
drowning the car though we could hear still the sound of the rushing waters in
the street as if we had been standing on the banks of a river in torrents. Blissfully the
darkness fell and the torch was of no help to determine whether the level is
static or raising or receding. So after a candle-light dinner that consisted of Upuma only and a short time
of chit-chatting we retired to bed, outwardly hoping for the best and
inwardly fearing the worst.
When the next day dawned, we rushed to see whether we could see
the car and were relieved to find it has not submerged and water stood at
ceiling level only. The relief was all the more when in the course of the day
we could see the wind-shield of the car and also noticed that the water
had given up its attempt to climb the stairs and retreated to the level of
first step. The feeling of relief on this front was overshadowed by
shortages in other fronts like water, milk etc. We decided to skip bath and
bring rain water from the street for use in the toilet. We conserved milk by drinking black
coffee, saving it for buttermilk next day. The next day as we were running out of
drinking water, one Mr.Christopher from the second floor, offered us his can of
water, as he was leaving for his native place. Using the hand-pump downstairs,
Ganesh and Jaishree could also bring a few buckets of water for general use. Further water
has run out of our building by this time and
so they also started the job of cleaning the slush left behind and took stock
of their losses. It was
quite a heavy loss as the cot and mattress had soaked, fridge had toppled down
and all the books and clothes in the storage compartment of the cot rendered
unusable, Still they kept their cool and brought water for us, managed to get
milk from somewhere, moved their mother to her daughter’s place and helped
Jaishree’s parents as well with supplies braving the knee-deep stagnant water
in the street.
The first big relief after deluge came when land-line telephone started
ringing. It was my niece Sandhya from T.Nagar who had
been trying repeatedly and was successful then in contacting us. Through her we sent message to our daughter, Suchy in Australia, that we were safe and the landline was working. She promptly contacted us and it was a big
relief talking to her ourselves. Rest of the day was mostly sent in receiving
and making calls exchanging notes. Our
servant-maid, Mariamma, whose house was flooded and had been housed in a school also came for work and helped us by getting water from the sump downstairs and we could take bath
after three days. As Ganesh managed to bring milk and vegetables going round
the few open shops, the dark days of our ordeal was slowly coming to an
end. It was complete when electricity
was restored next evening and we felt like celebrating. I was then reminded of a Mullah story. He was struggling walking in tight
shoes. People asked him why he does not change
to a bigger size shoe. Mullah countered saying how he can then savour
the relief and joy that he gets when he removes the shoes. So as the simple act of removing a shoe gave
Mullah joy and relief so the simple act of restoration of electricity gave us
great joy as now the fridge can be operated, motor can work, lift can fuction,
TV can be seen, laptop can be worked, mobile phone can be charged, WI-FI can operate
and what is more important than all these, we need not struggle in the dark as
the sun goes down. Though the ordeal
was not over, we could now clearly see the dawn of its end
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