Me and Dad, started treading the path from Andheri East towards Dadar. We had hoped that on reaching the Western Express Highway we would be able to hail a rickshaw or a cab and proceed ahead by vehicle to Dadar. We had no idea what we would be welcomed with !!!!!
On reaching the W.E. highway we finally found an empty rickshaw, and it was literally empty!!! It didn't even have it's driver guarding it. In fact, we found a complete line of such empty vehicles stretching into infinity. Vehicles, lined in a random manner, some with drivers in it. Most with drivers without it. It was as if the shooting of Resident Evil or some other apocalyptic film was taking place. After walking some distance we saw others like us. Other people, who tired of waiting for fate or government to intervene had decided to brave the distance to their homes themselves. Normal people, who faced the cruelties of life everyday and this one was just a bit different from their banal difficulties, which they hoped to conquer with their usual grit and smile (or frown).
Once after walking we crossed Vile Parle, did we come to the end of the "infinite" line of vehicles. I realized that this was the limit of human strength-vehicles, nature had taken over from this point. I saw the full flow of water at this point. This point being shallow, water was getting accumulated here. The rains were still dancing upon us. But after spending half a day in muck and rain drenched clothes, it really didn't matter any more for us.We were soaking in and out, and in a way that we forgot what dryness meant.
The trek continued, each step a battle waged with a weak body against an increasingly strong force of water. We were just following the crowd, in fact each person in the crowd was following the other. Roads were being carved out of water. A few ones, took the step of making their non working two wheelers accompany them before eventually realizing it's futility and abandoning them in the middle. (I wondered how they must be remembering where they had left off their vehicles!!!). I was literally humming the song "Chale Chalo" from the movie "Lagaan" (with the rains portraying the part of the British officials---it was stupid, but in such situations drawing the line between sense and non sense doesn't make any sense)
One incident which i remember about that day was as follows. It happened in Khar. As i was walking the water levels had come up to my shoulder level- me a 6 foot fellow. All i could see in front of me was water and people with shoulders and heads above them. What i saw of Mumbai, were its buildings (whose ground floors were lost in the muddy waters) and the lamp posts. As i walked I stumbled upon something. It hit my knees. I wasn't able to move ahead. It was wide. I was puzzled. I thought it might be a bike. I shifted aside and tried to make my way, but the same result. As the water levels receded a bit, i could see the yellow top of a taxi protruding out. A chill ran down my spine. I had no way of ascertaining if it was only the taxi or had it become a metal grave for passengers inside. Till that point, this was just another adventure for me, at this point i realized that i am in a neck deep, actually shoulder deep shit!!!
Every next step of mine was an enormous one for me. For i knew one thing, If i stumbled, there was no way anyone could help me out of the water. To add to it, some "caring " fellow shouted out that the manholes were running open.
The watery road continued untill we reached the Bandra flyover. With the increasing distance and thickening levels of water, the crowd had started thinning in. At the flyover hardly some ten twenty people had reached. Herein we realised that the water levels were high only between Bandra and Andheri. We somehow crossed the flyover and came over to the dry part.
From the Bandra flyover i had a look over the city. I tell you, if anyone of you ppl were unlucky enough to catch the movie"Tum mile", the scene wherein they have an aerial view of the whole city was completely true. That was what i saw from Bandra. The whole city was submerged under water. Only the high rises were holding up their necks. It was honestly dreadful
Anyways from Mahim we got a taxi and zoomed to Dadar. Herein we came to know that there would be no buses till the next day. We spent the night at the Swami Narayan temple in Dadar in the same mucky wet rags for the second straight day. The next day at 7 in the morning we caught a bus and made our exit from Mumbai.
Back home as i saw the news channels airing the aerial views of Mumbai, it was a nostalgia. What for other people were just the morning coffee table discussion topic had become an inseparable insignia in mine and my dad's lives. I don't know if it was good or bad, but i saw the exhibition of human strength in those three days as well as an exhibition of human frailties before nature.................
Si you should become an author man.
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