The sky had opened up and all the hell had broken loose. It was pouring cats and dogs and if I were to say, even elephants and whales! The lecture ended and the look of bliss on each one’s face was enough to give a big time complex to someone whose death sentence had just been cancelled. Little did we know we had a long day lying ahead!
Within no time every corner and corridor was vacated and the college bore the look of a marooned island far off the coastline. Albeit the heroic Trojans were still there making decisions (you know how good we are at that!), which at that hour of the day seemed more difficult than deciding if India should sign the CTBT. But some Daniel came to judgment and the battalion made a move, advancing in squadrons to their ultimate destination- Home Sweet Home (Respective homes is implied)!
But three war heroes stayed back. One, who was probably highly stimulated by the atmospheric changes to carry out an 11th hour duty for the upcoming tech fest, second waiting for the dolphins to come cruising and take her home and third, the angelic demon, only to give a drop to the first and company to the second in spite of not being in the pink of health himself. Now that I think should earn him some extra brownies! Speaking of brownies in a different context, we had devoured plenty of them already. This was one of those days when the quiet girl with her silence makes her presence felt almost thunderously!
The weather had almost cast a magic spell. Gusts of wind that swayed the trees in the campus brought with them a spirit of divine freshness. It seemed to bring to life everything inanimate. Felt like Seventh Heaven. But beyond it was a different world. The city of seven islands was in deep waters.
The cellular networks, which otherwise connect people to their dear ones, like an umbilical cord running across the city spanning every inch of it, were jammed. The ‘future’ didn’t quite seem ‘bright’. Those were the first signs of the catastrophe that followed.
News of the transport system breaking down spread like wild fire. So off we were on Shanks’s pony. The paranoia of disappearing in thin air gripped us. Who knew if the BMC was kind enough to leave a few manholes open for the water to seep in? (For those of you who felt it would be safer to be gobbled up from down below and come out of the tap the following day, let me tell you that the city has been facing a major water crisis since then. So you were lucky you didn’t venture!) Wading through the water-clogged lane, with gushes of water in the opposite direction (Nature follows Murphy’s Law) we reached Kapol Nivas junction.
It looked more like an ocean where every sea on the face of the earth had come to empty it’s water. Not even a trace of a moving vehicle. It was a bad hair day all right! First you make one of the biggest sacrifices of your student life- two hours of sound sleep, to attend a lecture which gets cancelled (You don’t expect me to know which lecture was it, do you? Grow up! We are in TE! We don’t even wear our ID cards any longer!), then surviving a mundane lecture to jot down a syllabus so full of jargon that even Hebrew would have made much more sense to us and if all that wasn’t enough, there we were, as stranded as a crew of sailors who have abandoned their sinking vessel in the heart of the sea with no life boat around! But as though a prayer was answered long ago (exactly two semesters back) we had the girl living next door. So all roads on that eventful day lead to her house. Dripping and drenched from head to toe we flocked at her place frantically trying to establish a connection with the missing pals. Wild thoughts flew like bats in the belfry until we could find their whereabouts.
We got a Royal treatment there as if we were the Maharajas from the Orient. After sipping steaming hot cups of tea and having gulped down plates of deep fried pakodas we were once again in a mood to get wet. I mean more wet. You could see us coming out of the cocoon to turn into freaks! Some went across the road, battling against the water and behaved as if it was the Sea of Tranquility that they had just crossed! A cabbie woke up with a start. Something similar to spider man had just crept up his half submerged taxi. Was it really spider man who’d come to save the city? Was it an ET? The day had brought enough surprises not to believe this one. Nah! This guy was just trying to get a bird’s eye view of the havoc that lied ahead.
The butthawala on the corner must have surely made a fortune! Who, remotely human (that was necessary to counts us), could resist the tempting aroma of the fresh corn as it sizzles on the tongues of fire? The corns were sold like freshly baked hot cup cakes! And it was there that we met the only guy we couldn’t contact (well it’s a long story I’m so trying to keep short) munching on his share of corns. (I’ll bet this corn corner drew more crowd than the corn club on the other side of the road did through the year) Got news about the water level in college there. Stairs in the quad were serving as watermarks for a change!
Now the story takes a different turn here. It’s one o’clock in the morning. A time you would otherwise be in bed. All cuddled up and cozy. But I was making an unsuccessful effort to relax in the cramped space inside my car as I switched stations on the radio. A tiny blue spec in the labyrinth of motionless vehicles. Time lost it’s meaning even as the digital clock flashed every single second to keep track of it. The songs on the radio (the only means of entertainment apart from the foggy windows) were nonetheless adding insult to injury. “Zindagi bhar nahin bhulenge yeh barsaat ki raat…” ,“…Aage hai barsaat, peeche hai toofan……ghar hamko jaane na dega” Could very well sense the mockery in those songs. I got down slamming the door behind me and stood with my arms akimbo. That didn’t make the situation any better. Outside it was cold enough to freeze the tail of a brass monkey! And I wasn’t even made up of brass! Damn!
As of others, some were enjoying good forty winks at a place called ‘home’. (Now ‘respective’ isn’t implied!). Some others were enjoying over a game of cards at a place, which as the ever-effervescent host puts it, is a perfect hangout zone with the best collection of music and movies. To raise a toast the least I could say here…
“I’ll be there for you,
When the rain starts to pour,
I’ll be there for you,
Like I’ve been there before,
I’ll be there for you,
‘Coz you’re there for me too!”
Despite of repeated urges to join the party (I’m sure it wasn’t anything less than that!) I kept fervently holding on to the forlorn hope of the water receding all through the night till the break of dawn. Now I’ll just skip the details of the following day. (After writing journals I can proudly say I’ve mastered that art of skipping unnecessary details!)
27th was the day that never was on the calendars of many. I’ve vowed not to focus on the ugly consequences of the rains, that washed away anything and everything but the ‘hope’ of the million victims, the only thing that has kept the human spirit all alive and kicking and helped it survive Nature’s wrath. The media has enough to tell and show you to keep you from having your meals for days on end. The hard facts of life!
That week has seen lives change over night and flip a complete 180. We are amongst the blessed bunch and let’s thank the Almighty for that. On a concluding note, wonder if the 26th is indeed jinxed? It’s all in the mind! Didn’t it promise a week’s holiday for us?
