"What are their names, by the way?" I asked my flatmate, who was trying to sleep. "I don't know. Didn't they introduce themselves? I think the man's name is Rajesh," she blabbered, while I went back to talking to my Twitter timeline
Yoshita Sengupta
"What are their names, by the way?" I asked my flatmate, who was trying to sleep. "I don't know. Didn't they introduce themselves? I think the man's name is Rajesh," she blabbered, while I went back to talking to my Twitter timeline.
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I don't know when I passed out; it was definitely after 2 am. At 10.30 the next morning, I woke up with a start and walked straight to the other room. It was empty; the bed was made, the blankets folded. It was more organised than I had last seen it.
I was working till 4 am the night before; I woke up late and to a barrage of messages from friends stranded across the city, unable to get to work.
Vidya Kamath and Rajesh Mengle are IT professionals
From there on, I followed the SOP: keep powerbank and candles on hand; charge phone; make a quick trip to the store to stock up on dry food and milk. My head was calm, like all of this was rehearsed.
The tiny, East Indian village in Santacruz where I have bought myself a 420 sq ft home, was like a hill on an island in the eye of a storm. Dark, gloomy, wet but nowhere near flooded.
Mumbai was under 312 mm of rain. Social media was flooded with photos of roads turning to rivers and flooded tracks.
While some spewed bile at the BMC, a few of us picked up a couple of hashtags to send live updates, and offer help. To most of us, the BMC is that estranged parent, missing and making a lot of money. We don't expect it to be there for us. We get by on our own. And that's heroic, it's a habit.
A female friend was trapped with 15 migrant workers on a temporary mezzanine floor inside a run-down timber shop in Kurla for over six hours. She was 1.6 km away but would have had to swim in five feet water to get here. Her phone was dead. I got into my car but realized it was impossible to get anywhere near Kurla. "You'll float away with your car," a boy from the nearby basti, who was helping us carwallas navigate traffic, said.
I opened the glove compartment, took out a poncho packed in a Zip-lock and handed it to him. He looked confused. "Kya karoon iska?"
"Pehen le, ya kisi ko zaroorat hai toh pehena de," I said. "Temporary raincoat hai."
"Thaili mein raincoat… thank you," he looked bemused. He helped me take a U-turn and I was back, driving on my non-water logged island.
A habitual stop at the chaiwala later, I was stopped by a young man with luggage in the middle of road. He was in tears. "Airport, please," is all he said. "But I'm not going…" I muttered, then gestured him to sit in the car.
"Left Vashi at 4, it's 8.30, flight at 10.10. Walked from central line to western line," he said. I drove towards the highway.
"Why did you leave home at all?"
"I've to get to Kolkata. Emergency."
I didn't ask more. At the start of highway were barricaded I couldn't cross. He got off and hopefully navigated the route I explained to him. I was home when I received a tweet asking if the offer to host people at my residence was still open. I received a call from two people. I kept a pot of filter coffee to brew and cleared the room I was to offer them. They came, introduced themselves and our Labrador Sofie wagged her tail. They were a bit awkward as they ate, took blankets and a change of clothes. A short conversation about how harrowed they were and lots of thank yous later, we put out two beds for them and retired to the other room.
I woke up the way I always do. I wasn't sure if it had really happened. I unlocked my phone before walking outside. Among other Twitter mentions and mails were two messages with a blessing. I had heard from Rajesh and Vidya. My flatmates for one night. They had slipped out of home at 5.30 am, after having done up the room, and were back home safely.
Letting in strangers in the dead of the night didn't feel heroic; it was the obvious thing to do. It's how humans respond to crisis. If you would have responded differently, I don't want to know you.
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