When Mumbai goes under water...

Greetings to you this Monday Morning !!
It is 23:55, Sunday Night as I send this out. I am writing this as I sit in a train traveling from Amhedabad to Pune – a journey which usually takes 13 hours, today would be taking over 24 hours. When Mumbai goes under water, you don’t need to be in Mumbai to feel the effects, you could be anywhere in the world. My heart goes out to people in Mumbai who have been severely affected by the unprecedented rains and the least I can do is pray that the rain gods offer respite to Mumbai and offer it SOON. What I went through (along with 14 of my colleagues), in the last 48 hours has been an absolutely wild experience. I definitely want to share this with you, of course provided you have the time to read. The sequence of events that have unfolded in the last 48 hours…
- Friday July 29 – 19:30 pm, Pune Railway Station : 15 of us board the Ahimsa express to Ahmedabad to visit the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute at Gandhinagar for recruitment. The plan is to start the Company presentation at 9:00 am on the next day. As I board the train I hear an announcement. The Mumbai rail link is cut off. The train will be diverted from a different route and may be late. I get worried, but can’t do much.
- Sat, July 30 – 9:00 am, (In the train): We should have started the presentation now- But we discover that we are 10 hours away from Ahmedabad and helpless. We are lucky to be born in an era of mobiles. A few calls and we are able to inform the college about our situation.
- Sat, July 30 – 21:00 hrs, Ahmedabad – Finally we are there, a whooping 12 hours behind schedule. What is really admirable is that nearly ALL students are there, waiting. They will attend the presentation from 21:15 to 22:00 and then they will take a two hour technical test on Computer Science subjects. Commendable.
- Sunday, July 31, 00:30 : My colleagues get down to the work of evaluating the test written by students. We should take an hour…that will be 1:30am when all students will assemble in the hall. At 1:30 am we declare the results… and are off to the hotel to hit the sack.Its been a long day. I look at the watch as I close my eyes. 2:30 am. I have a flight out of Ahmedabad to Mumbai at 7:00 in the morning.
- Sunday, July 31, 5:15 am: The alarm clock jolts me out of sleep. Need to move….Ahmedabad airport is 30 mins away. At 6:00 am, I am at the airport. That’s when the bad news starts coming in. First its only Flights to Mumbai being delayed. The next I hear is the Mumbai airport is closed. But flights will go.
- Sunday, July 31, 11:30 am: Nearly six hours into the wait, I hear the inevitable – All flights to and from Mumbai are cancelled. All rail links to Mumbai are snapped. TV screens are flashing incredible pictures of what is happening in Mumbai. I can’t believe my eyes. Balasaheb Thakery in a boat?. What in the world would be happening to the common man then?. I get back to reality. I need to get to Pune. My option is to take a bus with all my other colleagues in the evening to Pune. I call the travel agency. “The bus sir” he he says “goes through Mumbai”. I am scared now. I call my friends Nikhil Khanapurkar and Vivek Godbole, in Mumbai for an update. “It has been raining throughout the night”, they tell me. Now, even the bus is dangerous. Need a safer alternative.
- Sunday, 12:30 pm (Ahmedabad railway station): I am alone. All my colleagues are working in Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar. I was anyway not supposed to be there at this time so I have some band width to do something. I need to get 13 train tickets to Pune. Train departs in 4 hours from now. I meet Ismail Sheikh. He Promises to help me get past the long Queus for a nominal fee. I accept the offer. Lady luck smiles on me. I get all tickets – RAC. Should get confirmed soon says the official. “Rs 5600/- Sir”, he says. God, I don’t have that much cash on me. “No problem Sir, Indian Railways accepts VISA”. God bless VISA. I am keeping my fingers crossed for the tickets to be confirmed. I call Rishikesh – “Cancel the bus tickets, we will take the train” I tell him.
- Sunday, 15:30 (Ahmedabad Railway station): Wow, we will finally board the train to Pune. We enter the station……and discover – Train is 4 hours late. Damn. Back to the hotel. Lets get some rest. Two hours later I connect to www.indianrail.gov.in . All 13 tickets are confirmed. Phew !!!
- Sunday, 19:00 (Ahmedabad railway station): The train chugs in the station. We board. Train moves at 19:45. We should be in Pune in 24 hours, hopefully.
When Mumbai halts the country slows down. We in the train are lucky; we at least are getting to go home. In Mumbai, people no longer have homes. Their lives have been washed away by an unbelievable 36 inches of rainfall. They don’t have electricity, drinking water or food. But they are fighting. All they can do is hope……hope that the rain gods will offer respite.Have a great week!! And spare a moment to pray for Mumbai…