Remembering 26th July 2005

This day last year, would always stand apart in the history of Mumbai city. Stories of triumph, heroism, stories of complete emotional turmoil and horror will be passed on from this generation to another - such was the intensity of the disaster that shook us all on 26th July 2005 also known as 26th July Cloudburst.

Floods caused by continuous pouring of rain that day not only resulted in cutting off the city from the rest of the country, crores of rupees worth damage but also left several hundred dead, missing and many more homeless.

Though the floods were termed as Natural Disaster but can we really blame Nature? What about government responsibilities, citizen responsibilities and most importantly what about keeping Mumbai clean and green?

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that we still haven’t learnt anything from our mistakes. For example - Despite the government’s claims to have spent over Rs 1,200 crore to prevent a reoccurrence, there is little to show for it (early July showers this year were enough to prove this), Mumbai Disaster Management Cell still seems to be in a sleeping mode, BMC has apparently spent Rs 290 crores to improve the city’s drainage & roads and still we have blocked drains and completely screwed-up roads, many flood victims have yet not seen a single penny from the monetary compensation promised by our government and hundreds are still awaiting their insurance claims to come thru.

We find it easy to blame Nature and the Government for most of our miseries but we fail to look at our own follies. Many Mumbaikars continue to use banned plastic bags for regular use, throw away used paper/tin/plastic items on the roads and pollute our beaches and streets with garbage and other un-wanted products.

But as they say, it’s never too late to learn and hopefully we will for once be serious about our city’s future and finally with time be able to get over our Rain-O-Phobia.

Photos taken at work and on my way home…

Like many others stranded on 26th July, here is my story of that un-forgetful night.

Let me start by saying OH MY GOD what happened on 26th July?its still a nightmare for many of us Mumbai people. Such incidents/events I had only seen on Television. Don’t know where to begin, everything seems still so untrue.

On 26th July, around 3.30 Pm the electricity went off at my factory. So I along with some of my staff went out to take air and what we saw was UNBELIEVEABLE. The water had come in thru our office gate and had reached the 3rd step of our office main entrance. And all the workers were running around to save the stock that was kept in our godown and move to our first floor empty room.

Around 4.00 pm…things just seemed to be getting worse, so my brother/boss asked the office staff and workers to leave. Some of them left straight away and some stayed back thinking that they would leave later when the rains slowed down. I tried calling my friends and family but the mobile phones were down too. Then I decided to leave for home but when I started my car but because of the force of the water the steering wheel wouldn’t move. Plus people walking on the roads advised me to back in because there was way to much traffic on the main road. So I left my car at the front gate and came back in.

Then me, my brother along with our remaining office staff stayed in the factory till 7.00 PM. But the RAINS just went on and on…

Finally at 7.00 Pm me, my brother and another friend decided to go home walking. Now we are talking of walking from Andheri East to Juhu about 7 kms. But little did we know what was in store for us. It took us 3 hours to reach home, we walked thru above waist high water in pitch darkness.

Cars, trucks, buses were nearly drowned, buildings had lost their ground floors. Only thing that was moving where the people of MUMBAI CITY. It seemed as if the whole city was on the roads. At times the flow of the water was so fast that we had to hold on to each other for support.

Some good people (God bless them)…where out of their houses with torches guiding people and warning them of the nearby potholes/ditches/open gutters. Some people where seen handing out food…drinks to the old people and young kids. Many people had simply lost their way in the darkness and the dirty gutter water.

The scenes reminded of those si-fi movies, where they show that the world is coming to an END. We saw people sitting in the buses that were half drowned. Many people were sitting on top of their cars because they could not take the risk of taking their kids home walking or more like swimming home in the flooded waters. It was just so DARK…that we had no clue what was in front of us….there was light at times from the LIGHTING IN THE SKY and the cars that had drowned in the water…but had their head light turned on.

Reaching home was such a sigh of relief, believe me I have never been this happy being at home. We had no electricity at home too. But thankfully there was no flood situation here. My Locality is slightly on a higher side that’s why it was saved. But then i think of those thousands of people who were still stranded outside in the heavy rains and flooded water.

We had no electricity till 27th July 6.00 pm. Some of the suburbs still don’t have LIGHT, WATER and PHONE.

Finally today, we came to the factory, luckily there are no heavy damages. Got thru to most of my friends and thankfully they and their families have reached home safely. Heard many stories, encounters from others and our journey seems nothing compared to theirs.

Words cannot describe what we saw, went thru and felt on the night of 27th July. All I can say that it was an EXPERIENCE of a LIFETIME and I pray that it remains just once a lifetime experience.

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