Whew!!! I am Alive - 26 July 05

Finally...That day has come....The day I have been thinking of which for the past one month...The day of relief but still the day of grief...

8 a.m.,

604, L2, Poonam Pragati,
Poonam Nagar,
Andheri(E), Mumbai

As usual the alarm in my mobile rang horribly and I threw my mobile away. I just heard some murmur from the next bed. Oops, not again. The mobile as per its routine had hit my roommate. He threw it back to me and I finally got up. I had to reach office at 9 for some important work. But it was already late. Hurrying up I got ready, took my umbrella, put on my jerkin and stepped out. I realized the dampness in the air, as it had rained heavily last night. Luckily it was just drizzling when I went out. Hoping that it wouldn't rain till I reach my office, I stood in the queue at the bus stop. The bus came and my journey towards the relief began....

"It is going to be really a relief....Yes....I am resigning today from my dull job at TCS".

9:30 a.m.
Andheri Station.

The bus stopped at Andheri station. The effect of the downpour in the night was clearly visible. I had to walk through calf-leveled water to reach the station. Oh my leather shoes...Alright, just a few more days to go.....As expected, the trains were running late. I went to platform 2, and started waiting for the Churchgate slow. The crowd was almost the double in number. The train came, and everyone started fighting to get inside. I used the normal tricks to get in first and grabbed the standing place near the next door, where Bandra station would have come. The train took a long halt at khar and reached Bandra after half an hour. Stepping down on the platform, I started thinking about my project manager's reaction that would come out after I submit my resignation letter. I caught 310 which dropped me at RBI, Bandra Kurla Complex.

10:15 am
RBI, BKC

By this time it had started raining heavily. I walked to the first floor and had a glance inside the office. Whew! my manager was still to come. I switched on my desktop and started my routine work. After some time, my boss came. Frustrated by the rain, he didn't look in any sort of mood to tolerate my resignation. So I decided to postpone the action till the lunch time. The things were just not going my way. I went to CMC canteen for lunch and mixed up my brand new two fold umbrella with some old and almost a dead one. Doesn't matter....just a few more days to go...I came back to the office and started working, in fact started waiting for my manager to come back. My heart started pounding heavily....come on..after all I was resigning from a MNC and also was about to sacrifice all the opportnities to go onsite that would have come after few months. Should I really? I decided not to give any second thought to the decision of leaving the company and took the resignation letter out from my drawer which was ready to be signed and stamped for last few weeks. My manager came back and looked at me skeptically as if he knew what I was about to do. But how would he be knowing...I just laughed at his unawareness and asked him for his five minutes. That's it, I handed over my resignation letter to him and said "I am resigning" . I was expecting some outburst reaction from him, but surprisingly he simply smiled back and asked "So where are you going?". I just couldn't believe, I had done it...my very first resignation letter...costing around Rs. 60000 against the service agreement...Whew!!!...

I tried calling my father to tell about my resignation....unfortunately, Orange network was down for some unknown reason, so I called from my office mobile, Tata Indicom.

3:30 pm,
My Desk,
RBI, BKC

I was feeling really relaxed and relieved. I had discussed all the procedure with my boss and had already sent an email to my HR manager. Everything was done, just negotiating upon the bond amount and taking the service certificate were the issues left, which I was supposed to do after the notice period gets over. My boss handed over a heavy knowledge transfer plan to me, for the complete notice period. It was going to be really hectic. I met my group leader, my boss' boss, he was also reacting patiently. Like the dampness I smelled in the morning, I smelled the professionalism there. I realized that it takes tremendous efforts to think professionally as my managers. Hats off to them !!!...

5 pm,
Group Leader's Desk,
RBI, BKC

The desk phone rang.....He discussed something over the line....and asked everyone to leave the office early. Because of tremendous heavy downpour all the trains were out of service. That was the news he had...something which was really very trivial as compared to what actually the situation was...

The professional had made a mistake there....he shouldn't have asked anyone to leave the office...

I, along with my friend, Abhijit, left the office and went down. I had not seen such a heavy rainfall in my whole life...nothing was visible beyond a few feets. We started walking by sharing the same dead umbrella. It did not work against the awful and overpowering force of water falling down. We got drenched within a fraction of a minute. I luckily carried my bag on that day, in which we kept all our valuables, folded our pants upto knee and started walking towards the bus stop. Bandra Kurla Complex, the most well planned commercial area in Mumbai was flooded with a few inches short to knee level water. Zero, absolutely zero chances of any bus coming there to pick up just two of us. We had to walk towards the highway to catch a bus. We really enjoyed the scene there, children playing out in water and even the elder ones. We both had heard a lot about the rains in Mumbai, and thought it was normal for all mumbaikars to see that much of water logging...we continued to walk towards kalanagar bus stop on the highway...

5:30 pm,
Kalanagar Bus Stop, Western Express Highway
Bandra(E)

We reached the bus stop and stood in the queue. I had to call my father, so I took out my mobile. But Orange network was still down.

"What's happening? Why were all the vehicles on the road not moving? The signals here never stayed red for so much time...I looked at the signal...It was not working, probably a power cut...Power cut, in Mumbai?...strange..."

Not even a single bus was coming towards us, nor any was going opposite. Vehicles were immobilized because of a major traffic jam somewhere towards Andheri. We waited for half an hour there, but we could not spot any bus heading towards Andheri. Finally we decided to go by a taxi. A taxi was standing right in front of us and we asked the driver to come to Andheri.

"Main 2 ghante ho gaye ek hi jagah pe khada hoon taxi leke....traffic aage nahi jayegi...subah tak wait karna padega aise hi".

6:15 pm
Same place

We laughed at taxi driver and started making joke out of him. Suddenly, my friend pointed out something towards the road by which we had come to the highway...

The fear began to grip my mind...the knee level water in which children were playing had risen upto the waist...in just 45 minutes..."Oh god, please save me...I cant swim"...

Horrible...Bandra was never a low lying area.

Wakola, Khar, Santacruz....OH MY GOD !!!!!

On my way back home were all these low lying areas... and there was no way back to the office, everything was flooded there in Bandra Kurla Complex.

"We have to catch any bus to secure our lives", I just thought of it, and at the next moment, in the picture ahead was a bus to Boriwali going from the wrong side of the road. We started running to catch the bus, and finally stepped inside. The bus was overpacked, not even an inch to keep our foot. I asked whether it was going towards Andheri by any chance.

"Haan, jayegi Andheri"...I looked at the taxi driver we talked to, he was still there...Whew !!!...

I again tried calling my father...Orange was still down...Indicom was congested...

The whole picture was clearly in front of me. The traffic was jam because of water logging in low lying areas, and as usual trains were out of service because of the same reason...well that was normal, but why was there so much water in Bandra?

We kept moving towards Khar...and our journey towards grief began...

7:30 pm
Khar

Fighting against the heavy gush of water, our bus reached khar, where the water started coming inside the bus, upto the last step at the door. The engine was completely under water, but was still working. Outside was the scence with floating cattle, motor cycles and even we spotted a maruti 800. It was all dark till then. Street lights were off, no electricity in residences, shops. Headlights of the bus had gone underwater. Using small torches, few local people, were trying to show bus driver the way of getting the bus out of water. But impossible it was...many floating obstacles were in the way.

"Its been two hours I have been standing, my legs have given up, I am hungry too..."

10:30 pm
Khar

After tremendous efforts put by the driver and all the people outside, our bus got out of that area. My Tata Indicom finally worked and I called my father.

"Don't get down from the bus, its been declared flood situation in Mumbai...I have been watching NDTV for past 2-3 hours, thank god you called me and you are safe. Don't get down...you can't swim"

"Don't worry papa, I will reach home by 11:30, the bus was stuck in between but now its moving"...signal problem again...Fine, atleast I could convey my safety to my parents. The person next to me asked me for my mobile after watching me talking. His situation was even worse, he did not have telephone at home, he had to contact someone who could post his message to his family. After 3-4 attempts he was successful and looked really relieved. He got up from his seat and asked me to sit there...But he was an old man, so I asked him to sit back. After that my mobile was in demand, many people used it. The feeling of helping others was really very nice. A girl and her mother were sitting next to me, they asked me for my mobile...and Tata Indicom went down...after doing the needful for many worried and terrified people in the crisis situation.

11:00 pm
Just ahead of Khar

"Actually my Airtel is working but the mobile is discharged, can I use your mobile with my sim?", the girl asked. I removed my sim card and gave my mobile to her, she made a call using her Airtel. The things were just not going my way....both of my mobiles got discharged.

Her mother gave me 2 biscuits to eat. Finally...I ate something. In the meantime, one of us had gone down and had brought some chips to share. I asked him from where did he get those and he pointed out at a small store lighted with 2-3 candles. I went down in water and brought some biscuits from that store. Getting down from the bus could have resulted in some life snatching accident as there was hardly anything visible. fortunately this time everything went my way. I was back in the bus and shared biscuits with Abhijeet and other people there.

It again started raining heavily. It was all dark outside and in addition to that, was this rain. We tried to look outside to get a clue about the location, but the attempt went futile. And the bus stopped again, the driver switched off the engine. Again traffic jam and this time it looked like we had to stay in the bus for the whole night. Driver went outside to get a glimpse of the situation ahead, returned back and asked us to stay in the bus throughout the night.

We were just behind Wakola, the most low lying area I knew on the Western Express highway. The water level had risen upto second floor there. SECOND FLOOR !!!

Many people went outside to see what all was happening, and we finally got some space to sit. We were 4 persons sitting on a seat of 2. I was near the window. The downpour had lessened its strength. It was simply drizzling out there and I had a chance of looking outside. We were still in the water. Although water was just upto the knee level, it was not logged, it was flowing, probably the flood water. It was spread over many miles, covering every inch available. It was impossible to figure out the skeleton of the roads. Everyone in cars, buses, trucks had given up driving, but there were people on two wheelers as well. They had to stand in that water, keeping their feet in the cold water for a long time. Finally one of the persons in our bus asked those bikers to park there vehicle somewhere and to come inside the bus...Whew !!!

5:00 am
Same place.

Just woke up. I just dont know how did I manage to sleep in such circumstances. Perhaps it was the sense of relief and satisfaction of helping others which made me sleep so deeply. I looked around, many people had already left. We were just 20-30 now. We waited for one more hour. Many people had started walking towards Andheri. Finally, we also decided to walk and stepped down. Water level was still upto the calf. Going further ahead, was a flyover and below it was horrifying water logging upto the waist level. People were trying to go across it, but we simply realized that it was more than impossible.

We went on the flyover and headed towards Andheri. Now we were far above the water...but looking downwards we could easily see the devastating effect of the flood...Wakola was completely floating...and the water level was upto the second floor...few brave men were trying to rescue the stranded ones...but no BMC workers were present there...how could anyone expect those guys to come there at all...it was an impossible task to reach such places as the whole Western Express Highway was blocked...thousands of vehicles, and lakhs of people were stranded there...

We kept on walking, witnessing the nature's curse to the largest city in India, the costliest city India, the liveliest city in India, the largest slums in India, the dirtiest part of India...flood has now swept away even the smallest spec of dirt, every inch of slums, every moment of liveliness and perhaps every penny of the poor.

We kept on walking, witnessing the longest walks some people had, right from churchgate to andheri, for a few, perhaps to Boriwali, walking through the waist level water...we also walked for 10 minutes...perhaps the most scary 10 minutes, as I din't know swimming.

We kept on walking, witnessing the brave hearts helping the helpless people, perhaps braver than the lions.

We kept on walking, witnessing the joyful people, perhaps enjoying the flood water, or.... perhaps hiding there losses.

We kept on walking, witnessing the longest and widest traffic jam we had ever seen, perhaps India had ever seen...

We kept on walking...waiting for Andheri to come...

Finally, After 3 hours of walking, we reached home....it was all dark inside...and outside too...

No power...my friend had battery of his mobile alive, i used it and called my parents to convey my safety...

"Whew!!! I am home....I am alive..."

...and the battery went down...