Two years ago....
It was a very pleasant morning. The sun was behind some clouds and there were dark clouds all around. The roads had little puddles in them and everyone was complaining about how no one took care of the water problem. I was only concerned about my maths exam. Annual exam for 9th, that too in Maths. Not my best subject. I was nervous, and the weather was making me feel much better. But as we got to school, I noticed dark dark clouds all over. I pointed them out, and my father (Hans Padmanabhan Kaushik) said "nonsense! That's just the clouds appearing dark because the sun is behind them". I didn't agree, and said so. He just called it wishful thinking.
That day, as I wrote my exam, cold winds blew threw the classroom, setting us up chattering for all three hours of the exam. Finally I was done, and noticed it was pouring.
I went downstairs, past a flooded field, and saw my father waiting for me. My sister had no exams, as she was in fifth, but she had got special permission to go home. The junior headmistress had thought about it when my father asked if my sister could go home, and she declared a half day holiday for everyone. As we waded through shin deep water to leave school, I saw a cable lying placidly next to me in the water.
We got to a supermarket soon enough, and picked up some provisions, as the reports had said the weather was going to be worse.
A whatsapp official message(in Tamil) had been recieved in a family group, about how people in low lying areas (especially along the Adayar) should evacuate so because of this and the reports by Tamil nadu weatherman, along with a few other weather reporting channels my parents decided to stock up for the next few days. We got home safe, but wet, and dried off. The current had gone. Through the day, the dark weather persisted, and we used a Wi-Fi dongle intermittently on one inverter plug point to make and receive updates.
That was how I got to know that that day was technically a holiday, and just to finish off the exams, my school had been running. (the last week had also been pretty rainy, and they had had exams in the afternoon to compensate for holidays, or rain in the morning).
My grandparents place, and my cousins place were by the Adayar river, less than 100m from the river. My mother talked about the flooding in 85, and what she had been told of the floods in 76, and hoped that wouldn't happen again. They had already moved everything off the floor and onto table tops there, just to be safe.
The first day of what is now known as the Chennai floods got over very slowly. We had something thrown together for dinner, and hoped the rains may abate by the next day, and that power would return soon. We didn't need our fans that night.
It was a very pleasant morning. The sun was behind some clouds and there were dark clouds all around. The roads had little puddles in them and everyone was complaining about how no one took care of the water problem. I was only concerned about my maths exam. Annual exam for 9th, that too in Maths. Not my best subject. I was nervous, and the weather was making me feel much better. But as we got to school, I noticed dark dark clouds all over. I pointed them out, and my father (Hans Padmanabhan Kaushik) said "nonsense! That's just the clouds appearing dark because the sun is behind them". I didn't agree, and said so. He just called it wishful thinking.
That day, as I wrote my exam, cold winds blew threw the classroom, setting us up chattering for all three hours of the exam. Finally I was done, and noticed it was pouring.
I went downstairs, past a flooded field, and saw my father waiting for me. My sister had no exams, as she was in fifth, but she had got special permission to go home. The junior headmistress had thought about it when my father asked if my sister could go home, and she declared a half day holiday for everyone. As we waded through shin deep water to leave school, I saw a cable lying placidly next to me in the water.
We got to a supermarket soon enough, and picked up some provisions, as the reports had said the weather was going to be worse.
A whatsapp official message(in Tamil) had been recieved in a family group, about how people in low lying areas (especially along the Adayar) should evacuate so because of this and the reports by Tamil nadu weatherman, along with a few other weather reporting channels my parents decided to stock up for the next few days. We got home safe, but wet, and dried off. The current had gone. Through the day, the dark weather persisted, and we used a Wi-Fi dongle intermittently on one inverter plug point to make and receive updates.
That was how I got to know that that day was technically a holiday, and just to finish off the exams, my school had been running. (the last week had also been pretty rainy, and they had had exams in the afternoon to compensate for holidays, or rain in the morning).
My grandparents place, and my cousins place were by the Adayar river, less than 100m from the river. My mother talked about the flooding in 85, and what she had been told of the floods in 76, and hoped that wouldn't happen again. They had already moved everything off the floor and onto table tops there, just to be safe.
The first day of what is now known as the Chennai floods got over very slowly. We had something thrown together for dinner, and hoped the rains may abate by the next day, and that power would return soon. We didn't need our fans that night.
This brings back very disturbing memories. Despite that I look forward to the rest of the series since your account is so readable.
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