The Deluge - memories of 26th July 2005

Dirty water everywhere 

   We watched, at first in fascination, then trepidation, as the water steadily crept into the building compound, then slowly seeped into our house. Frantically we tried to remove everything from the ground level of the first room into the next room. A feeling of helplessness gave way to horror as we watched the clear water grow murky because of the gutter water now seeping into the rooms at the back from the kitchen and toilet.

   My younger son and I emptied the lower shelves of the cupboard, which contained clothes, books etc and dumped them on the bed. Surely the water would not rise so high! But we were wrong. The flood had started around 3 pm and by 7 pm we were standing in knee-deep water. Our one year old Hyundai Accent in the compound was now covered with water up to the headlights. The plants we had purchased from the Green Grower nursery in Bandra were still in the car. The fish we purchased for the aquarium in the office were still in the plastic bag in the house. We put the bag in a bucket of water but as the water rose, the bag moved out and joined the medley flotsam of newspapers, buckets, mugs, slippers, mats, bottle caps, worms and cockroaches.

   By 9 pm the water level had reached the mattresses on the bed and the sofa-cum-bed. All the clothes and other things we kept on the bed were slowly getting wet. The neighbours called us upstairs to share a meal but we hesitated – still waiting for the water to come down so that we could make our way to Colaba, or at least Mahim, where we could spend the night, but it was not to be. Finally at about 10 pm we went up to the first floor and had dinner prepared by our neighbours.

   Our neighbours gave us mats to sleep on but we were restless.  At about 11.30 pm the water had reached the electric meters in the meter room on the ground floor and suddenly the lights went out. With the help of torches we kept looking out at the water level but looking didn’t help at all. The water kept rising higher and higher. Now we could only see the tops of our cars in the compound. The scooters and bikes were already buried in the pool of water.

   Calls kept coming in on the one mobile with us that was still in use (my BPL phone was out of service). We learnt that one sister-in-law was stuck in her office at Malad. My brother-in-law went to pick his niece who was stranded in the school bus. He finally picked her up at 10.30 pm. My other sister-in-law was stranded near the Siddhi Vinayak Temple at Prabhadevi. A friend who worked in a hotel had to spend the night there. The few  people who managed to return home at night into our building had to wade through water that was neck deep. Our compound and adjoining roads were now a swimming pool.

Why do you Write?

In an essay titled ‘Why I write’ George Orwell  of ‘Animal Farm’ fame had this to say about his journey as a writer.

 I write because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing. But I could not do the work of writing a book, or even a long magazine article, if it were not also an aesthetic experience. Anyone who cares to examine my work will see that even when it is downright propaganda it contains much that a full-time politician would consider irrelevant. I am not able, and do not want, completely to abandon the world view that I acquired in childhood.

   Joan Didion – author of ‘the year of Magical Thinking’ says that a writer is a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.

‘Why do you write?’ I asked the members of the Writestuff Writing Club. Here are some of the responses

Phorum Pandya

It was a rainy Saturday morning. “Don’t go to work today,” my boyfriend suggested. Who’s going to work, I thought to myself. I’m going to write, I smiled, to myself . “It’s production day, it’s  the day we put the edition to bed and I HAVE to go,” I answered.

“So you won’t change your mind?” he asked.

I picked up my backpack, put on my windcheater and opened my umbrella, before stepping into the rain.

Writing is my shadow. Sometimes, when a creative block strikes, I detest writing. But it stalks me. The more I run away from writing, the more it creeps into my system…

Investigative reporter J Dey was shot dead on June 11, 2011.

His fault (according to the underworld) – was that he wrote. Truthful reports. And two books. About the underworld.

Would he have changed his profession if he knew this day awaited him? I doubt.

He was the first reporter whose copy I was given to edit. As a cub editor, I often stammered while asking him questions. While subbing one report, I had called him five times in ten minutes. The sixth time, I apologised.

“You can call me a hundred times. I understand,” his voice smiled through the telephone.

That’s all it took to look up to this senior reporter with pride and respect.

To me, he was a like the Big Friendly Giant (BFG) from Roald Dahl’s book with the same title.

At this moment, news channels are flashing reports about his death. Five bullets were reportedly pumped into his body in broad daylight.

Not many know he started out has an environment reporter before switching to crime. He loved plants and animals, and had the friendliest smile ever.

I never met him again after I quit MiD DAY in 2009. But, he came to my mind often. Sometimes, when I read his bylines and sometimes for all the ‘underworld’ stories he had narrated while we sipped chai in the office canteen.

You will be remembered, BFG.

                …………..

I write, for it is my fate and my destiny.

I write. That’s all I know.

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Phorum Pandya  writes for Hindustan Times

Saurabh Gupta

I write bacause the silence of mind create thoughts...
I write bacause every beings and no beings communicate with me through universal language...
I write because I understand that "words are the most ultimate creation of the universe, without which every atom will loose its recognition..
I write because I cannot cry..
I write because I cannot tell you what I did not like about you..
I write because you went away and I have no one to talk..
I write bacause no one understands me better than myself..
I write becase I cannot live without it.
I write because I was made to..
I write because thats how I breathe..
Actually I don't write, "My imaginary pen does in association with my mind"

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Manohar Bhatia

I write,because I observe
the happenings of the
world around me.... that
can be an experience, incident,
conversation,interview,meditation.....

Manohar Bhatia is a businessman

Kiran Pundlik Patil

I write because my mind doesnt' allow me to carry on the worldly burden in my mind. And the only way to lighten my mind is to pen down those thoughts and pondering of hours. I write because i can not help it out. I write because my intuition compells me to do so. I write because commotion in my mind doest not stop unless i write it down. I write because i can! But the question remains unanswered wether i write to please myself or to please thousand hundreads of empty souls strolling around on the road with bare feet desperatly wanting to be fed with intellect.
I WRITE BECAUSE I AM HAPPY DOING THIS!

Patil is a lecturer in a technical institute.

Sunil Khadawala

i write as i am not wrong
mostly
i write as i am not left
cpi, cpi (m) communists eeeekss
i write as i do not bite
i am a paper tiger only

.
i write as i bleed
but blood scares me                             
i write as life makes me
a forced writer
i write as i have 
limited tears 
i write as my heart
can take no more

 Sunil is a businessman who occasionally raves and rants about politics

-Chaitali Shah

I write what I see. 
I write what I hear.
I write what I feel.
I write what I read.
I read what I write.
I write my thoughts. 
I write to clear my thoughts.
I write to give direction to my thoughts.
I write my dreams.
I write because I enjoy writing.

Chaitali is an artist

---Karthik Nambiar

I write because I can. I am not sure how I can explain why I write. I write just because I think my brain can not hold all these thoughts and that it needs to come out. Also the thrill of writing with a pencil on paper is far more than typing something and when the pencil in my hand touches a paper it has to end with an artistic expression, be it a drawing or a written piece. I guess I write just like that.

Karthik revels in the fact that he is ‘awesomely unemployed’ right now.

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Sunny Pant

I write because I have stories to tell,
the roads i have walked, from heaven to hell

I write because sometimes I just want to just let go,
to express delight, to share a sorrow

I write because it brings me together,
it tickles my senses, like a Peacocks feather

I write because of all the wrongs,
they cannot be set right, but can be sung as songs

I write because of everything that I have left behind,
i cannot go back or hit rewind

I write because time never stops ticking,
to escape the gravity of life, to give myself wings

I write because theres a void to fill,
all those lost thoughts, all those feelings in my "Dil"

I write because my it keeps my soul alive,
makes me feel human, a real person inside 

I write because I have a stories to tell,
the roads i have walked, from heaven to hell

Amen.

Saumitra Pant works for Google as an AdWords Associate

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