No. I do not write movie reviews on my blog.
This is yet another real life
incident, just that, it was larger than anything that I have seen thus far in
life.
But before that, as usual the
abandoning of my blog space was not intentional. Just a result of my utter laziness measuring
the size of a dinosaur. A few posts are
in draft version still and never saw the light of their day. Let me not cry over unwritten posts now.
2nd December 2015 began unusually with many wake up calls in many forms. I had few calls from my neighbors and lots of noise in the street at 1 am in the midnight. My neighbors are such lovely people they never do anything crazy like that without a reason. The call that I picked was that of Priscilla and she informed me about an uninvited guest to our street, the flood waters in Chennai due to heavy rains and opening of Chemparampakkam lake.
It had been a relentlessly rainy day on 1st of December, sheets of water hitting Chennai continuously for more than 24 hours without a break since morning and added to it, there was no electricity and we had slept early. After Priscilla’s call, we woke up to a lot of confusion and I just managed to see the water glisten in our street in the darkness from our balcony. Told J lets quickly move – he gave me that super confident look and said “ No way. The water will not get in to our house”. That question stoked the wickedness of a typical wife and I gave him the coldest look on a really dark night and asked him, Why? Is the water scared of you? The Husband in him got the message.
2nd December 2015 began unusually with many wake up calls in many forms. I had few calls from my neighbors and lots of noise in the street at 1 am in the midnight. My neighbors are such lovely people they never do anything crazy like that without a reason. The call that I picked was that of Priscilla and she informed me about an uninvited guest to our street, the flood waters in Chennai due to heavy rains and opening of Chemparampakkam lake.
It had been a relentlessly rainy day on 1st of December, sheets of water hitting Chennai continuously for more than 24 hours without a break since morning and added to it, there was no electricity and we had slept early. After Priscilla’s call, we woke up to a lot of confusion and I just managed to see the water glisten in our street in the darkness from our balcony. Told J lets quickly move – he gave me that super confident look and said “ No way. The water will not get in to our house”. That question stoked the wickedness of a typical wife and I gave him the coldest look on a really dark night and asked him, Why? Is the water scared of you? The Husband in him got the message.
We first took my Mother in law
who cannot walk to the first floor and set her up in Dennu’s room. By then the
water had touched our Car park and J swung into action. We moved all our stuff to a 3 feet level carefully
balancing everything on top of each other and by around 3.00 am the first drop
of water showed its ugly face through the front door.
Panicking, I ran to the altar and
told Jesus, I do not deserve any mercy ( I really meant it), but do take care
of all of us. I was sure that water
would get in. Then the water started
slowly coming in from both sides, the
kitchen door and the front door. Slowly, Steadily. Rising to a feet inside the house within an
hour. While moving our stuff to a higher
plane I realized it is not going to work as the water would rise more than we ever imagined. . I looked at the water now in the hall,
bedroom and kitchen and thought of all the times I obsessively cleaned this
very same floor. I was getting disoriented.
By around 4.30 we had more than 2
and half feet of water inside the house.
And we realized the wooden stuff on which we balanced our stuff was
beginning to wobble. I told J a couple
of things then. The water level is going
to rise beyond our expectation. We need
to be prepared for the worst. J changed
his game plan and told Dennu and me to help him take stuff up to the first
floor and the rooftop in the second floor.
So, there we were, J taking
careful steps in the water, actually
dragging his feet so that he would not slip, ( a marbonite tile and water could
be a slippery combo ) and the remaining 3 of us, Dennu, our maid and myself,
playing passing the parcel, in the middle of the night, with worried
faces. J was totally in control,
instructing us where the stuff should go.
Another hour and the water was at
his chest and the fridge began to wobble under the frame of Chest of
draws. That’s when he announced the unthinkable. I am taking the fridge up. I honestly thought he was joking. A 265 litre
double door fridge bigger than him. I
gave him a very scared look, ( by now I was really worried) and said, J we do
not need the fridge. Let it go. Your back is more important.
He gave me a huge smile and said,
I know your idea. You have been planning
for a new fridge for a long time. That
is not going to happen. I am bringing
this up. Now I knew this man meant
business. J was calling Dennu, who was
as scared as me, if not more, telling J, Pa lets leave the fridge down. Let it go.
J sternly asked both of us to
shut up and just listen to him. He went
on to give ridiculous lessons in physics to Dennu. This is what he said, Den, look at the
inclination of our balustrade, if the fridge gets into the same inclination,
and if it can rest on my back with a little push from you, on its behind, we
both can get this one up. Dennu looked
so doubtful. J wasn’t even noticing
that. He secured the fridge with a good
rope and he bent down and asked Dennu to get it on his back in the right
inclination. My baby was quivering, yet
he just listened. I saw Joe’s every
muscle tremble under the damn weight, the fridge on his back and I was genuinely
worried about him. Closing my eyes for a while, hands on my chest and when I
opened my eyes, the fridge was in the first floor. I couldn’t bear to see that
sight.
Bright red marks on Joe’s hand is
a reminder of what he did. He looked at
all of us and said lets sleep now. By
then the water must have risen to 5 and a half feet. When I looked into the hall that resembled a
pool of dirty water, I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. J asked us to
get back into our rooms, and sleep. My safest place in the world was
threatening me beyond belief. Restless, petrified, sleep evaded all of us. Heard J waking up, but I didn’t move. I must
have dosed for a while. Woke up within
an hour to the lights outside just to realize that the water level had gone up
to 8 feet inside the house. It kept
rising very slowly now.
J asked me to come to the rooftop
where our swing used to be and I saw a nice kitchen set up. He got some more stuff from the kitchen, while
all of us dosed, removed all other electronic and electrical items, including
the water purifiers, my glass paintings and managed to salvage most of the stuff from
the ground floor. I was still reeling at the mental image of J carrying that
damn fridge. Unbelievable.
After 20 plus years of marriage,
there is always a tinge of contempt, purely bred through familiarity, with your
spouse. That night, I found a new
respect for this man. A man with a
strong spine ( literally), completely oriented during adversity, and most of all, a great role model for Dennu. My Bahubali. Equally proud of my little
Bahubali in the making. J
P.S:
- Our uninvited guest was with us exactly for a day and left without a trace, only after creating enough damage all around.
- We didn’t opt for evacuation as we could manage pretty well at home, though we struggled without power.
- The flooding had taken away the livelihoods of many people and unimaginable loss to loads of people in Chennai.
- I am still running the kitchen from the second floor. Waiting for the ground floor walls to dry up so that we can paint and disinfect the walls. In spite all the salvaging, we had to throw away a lot of stuff.
- The water rose up to 10 feet within our house, missing our first floor roof by a feet or so. We have to clean every square mm of our house and its frustrating.
- Having said all this, I am thankful to be alive. I also realize calamities end up being great levelers.
Surender to what is,
let go of what was, and
have faith in what will be.
New year is on the way.
I wish you all Joy, Love, Laughter and lots of happy moments and memories in the year 2016. God bless.
