I’ve only ever heard or read of floods in newspapers and reports, and never imagined I’d be trapped in one. I survived two earlier spells of heavy rains either side of my Diwali break, and dismissed it as the usual heavy rain-induced inconveniences; I’ve seen my share of that growing up in Kerala. All that changed in one manic block of 72 hours that began on Tuesday, December 1 2015.We were frantically asked to leave office in Adayar, at around 3 pm on Tuesday. It was the day after payday and I being in payroll was more concerned than anything else with mopping up the loose ends that are to be tied soon after that, dismissive as I was of trifles like weather concerns. I realised the scale of what awaited us when my department head shouted at me asking why I hadn’t packed up to leave yet! (Something that rarely happens with managers..) :) It was so bad we had cabs arranged for people to be transported, something that wasn’t done the earlier two times!
I got back home in R A Puram (have they renamed it R A Dweepam yet in keeping with the times?!) at around 4pm and since then there has been NO electricity. The water has breached the three steps in the front of our complex and is waist high in front of home, meaning it is unviable to go out even to go out and buy provisions! The signal on my phone has conked off since Wednesday morning, so bye bye 2G/3G even! Couldn’t track anything, whatsapp groups or mails, had NO way of knowing anything at all of the outside world, or if The Day After Tomorrow was already upon us!
I slowly realised that in a situation where electricity is nonexistent, everything will now start to go off one by one starting from the charge on my phone, the water supply and provisions in nearby shops (if at all I can get there!). I figured out that the best bet would be to go to office as I’d at least have electricity, food, water, a working net connection and most importantly charge my mobile and keep people posted! I therefore took the calculated call of wading through belly deep water in an uncertain terrain, slipping and falling three times along the way, with only my flat palms saving me from loss of stability and possibly fatality, to get to office and planned to spend the night there! On the way out, I could see every single building or colony being evacuated of its elderly residents (who probably comprise 90% of the area population!). Shuddered to think of what people with families would do in such a situation. I being a loner resident could pretty much take my own decisions and indulge in all this bravado as I saw fit!
It seemed like a good call as I could eat and communicate better in office, for the first time in three days. That evening gave me a taste of the dangers awaiting this city: milk got over/bad in the nearby tea shop by 2 pm, bakeries were overcrowded and running out of bread, buns and other perishables. ATMs were out of money, and people were collecting Bisleri bottles in droves, the most frightening sight of all!
Contact/information flow was minimal, as there was no signal, and Google Hangouts was the only thing NOT blocked by Office Wifi.
By a curious twist of fate, I was then called up by an uncle who stays just two streets away from office, after he somehow got my number from my folks, (the little things that matter! Them being just 400m away, managing to get through to me after 10 hours of trying and here I am in Adayar, safe and in one piece!)
I’ve heard of some harrowing tales friends and colleagues have gone through. People in the FIRST floor who have evacuated after water seeped in, people whose walls have caved in and they wonder if it’s an earthquake, people in so-called posh localities who have had to move out. That is when I realise how many little things had to fall in place, for me to be safe and in one piece today: the misstep while wading in water that could have been fatal, the train service that didn’t desert me when I needed most, the office that did have the facilities I thought it did (a shout out to Ayyappan from our Admin team who worked day and night to ensure all the paraphernalia was in place for the comfort of the security and blue collar staff who sleep in the premises), the much needed biscuit packs that I could get from a fast emptying bakery, and of course a non existent connection that worked for those crucial five minutes long enough for me to ask him for directions!
Through all this, however, I cannot recall one raised voice, even one car horn sound, one person putting his self interest above that of the group, one shopkeeper thinking of profiteering. There was concern writ large on everyone’s face and tone of voice: concern about contacting and evacuating their near and dear if need be, concern if there is food available to buy and eat, concern if there is clean drinking water available. That is but human, and natural. What was also human and came naturally to Chennai, was that everyone cared for everyone else. Random strangers and passersby alerted me of unsuitable roads, of what to watch out for or utilise to make my wade-through safer, which ATMs had cash and such things! Shopkeepers showed utmost patience in dealing with the crowds and their anxious queries about supplies. Motorists, the most infamous section of Chennai, showed the utmost courtesy to quickly apologise if they even remotely felt that they drove a little too roughly through the slushwater when I was walking through it! Marooned I was; alone, I most certainly was not. Chennai was with me. Not for a minute did I feel like I was playing a zero-sum game, where my searching for resources or safety meant denying someone theirs!
If this experience has taught me one thing, it is that the little things we take for granted, will one day become so valuable it could be life-changing: the queues for ONE biscuit packet, ONE cup of tea, the scramble for the ONE call or SMS to inform people of your whereabouts. Nothing you possess or have access to is too insignificant. You never know.
