THE BATTLE WITH SEEMINGLY STILL WATERS- THE FINAL BOUT

This article comprises of a series of four posts. This is the final post. It begins with

http://cherryspace.blogspot.in/2016/04/he-led-us-into-and-through-still-waters.html

We could not hold on for long at our makeshift place, leaving my father and sister at our home. Panic, banging on the thresholds of paranoia filled within us. We were not sure if the bore and sump water was contaminated as the authorities and the television news, did mention about sewage having leaked out and mixed with the water supply in a few places in our area. Magesh kept dissuading me from going back to my home and wanted me to talk to my father and sister to get them back to the makeshift place as the next BIG rain was coming.  The building had taken a huge brunt of the rain and the walls were all having wet patches. The very thought of school and having to operate from the make shift place for the same, which was at least 12 kilometres more by car and my daughter having to be alone post school time at the makeshift place, till either me or my wife came back from work, made us take a decision to move back to home. Necessities many times force us to take decisions which really may not be the best ones.

We moved back on Nov 25th which was a working day, in the evening. We had to spend hours on cleaning of the first floor including that of the refrigerator and the cupboards, before we could start life. It really took time. I was really scared of my daughter's health as her immunity had always been low. So we had to be careful about the water being used. The sump was fully contaminated and we had decided not to venture into cleaning it until all the rains were done. The bore water was what was being pumped up to the overhead tank and that had a very distinct smell and a light yellow colour too. My father and sister had already started using it. Cooking and drinking was of course with the canned water, but the bore water was being used for everything else. Me and my sister, spent about 5 hours, pumping out the water from the bore, until 2 a.m. in the morning. The water had seemed to be getting better then.

Sickness slowly found its way in. My father who was mostly confined to bed with liver cirrhosis, was the first to get high bouts of fever and next was my sister, but with anti-biotics, they got back to normal. I had decided not to venture out and to just work out of my make shift place, after the November 23rd road adventure and now I continued in that mode out of home. By the time we hit the weekend, my daughter fell sick and I too went into the same mode with diarrhea and vomiting. We had to spend some time at a hospital's emergency wing and then a day at a ward, before we got back home. Mahesh had called me up while at the hospital and told me to move out as soon as I reached home, back to the make shift place, as the BIG rain was coming and that it was really unsafe to be at our home.We had a real paranoia now for the types of water we used. The following Monday morning which was December 6th, the sky looked ominous.

The rain started and I called up Jeeva uncle, one of my family friends, to get help to clean our overhead tank once again, as lot of dirt had settled in its walls and base and it was showing up in the water flowing down from it. The several attempts at cleaning done earlier was probably not enough. He came with two men and they started cleaning the tank. Heavy rain started and my wife had just left for work. He advised me to leave the place and go to Ayanavaram. I took his help to convince my father and sister and we quickly decided to move out this time. We had the time to take all we want  and the time to pack, as the rain water was yet to rise on the road or within our home, and we could take out both our cars.

We left before afternoon and the rain was pouring down as we drove. It was difficult to drive as the visibility was poor and the roads were full of huge pot holes. We reached the make shift place and resumed our stay again. We were continuously viewing the television to get updates. The next day's rain hit South Chennai mercilessly and several reservoirs had to be opened with no notice at all. The city's total landscape changed and most of the places were inundated unlike the first bout where only some low lying places like ours were under water. There were places now where even the first floor was under water and this time the water there was pretty aggressive with strong currents. Our neighbours informed us that water had got in after we had left our home. We were pretty lucky that the water was seemingly still and just under the knee level. During the previous big bout, the people at Ayanavaram had been confident that water would never invade them, but with the rains ravaging at this rate, even their confidence was shaken now. However, the place still remained dry and the canal was still in full cry.

My hunt for food and water continued. The mobile recharges at shops were all down as the network towers of many providers were in bad shape due to the rains. The supply of canned water was getting choked in the different shops that I tried. I kind of got desperate at one point and entered a Nilgiris super market. My eyes scanned the 2 litres bottled water cartons having ten in each. In one flash decision, I wiped clean all the 6 cartons that were there and loaded them into my car. It cost me a bomb, but I had actually bought some peace for my mind with that. So long as the canned water was there, the bottled water was kept intact and used only for my daughter. While at the super market on the first day, where I had grabbed bottled water, I had also grabbed noodle packets. The second day, the noodle shelf was empty. Milk was never there and every other day when I went there, biscuits, cakes and other bakery items slowly disappeared one after the other. It was an alarming situation as we did not know what the weather had in store, to offer next. I noticed that people from ten or fifteen kilometres away, were coming to Ayanavaram to buy medicines as their places were all under water.

My wife had no option but to go for work at the hospital after being at the make shift place for a few days. A van picked her up from there and I packed water and some food for her anticipating that she would not be able to get back from the hospital, as no one would come to relieve her. She had to stay for two days at the workspot, just as I had anticipated. I continued to work from the make shift place. My sleep was less through the nights as I kept vigil, often looking out at the garden outside, to see if water had invaded.

The rains continued their decree with the same merciless and domineering demeanour. We prayed like we had never ever prayed before. The rains stopped some time in the second week of December. My father and sister returned home first and all the cleaning had to be done all over again. We moved in just before Christmas and had a very simple Yuletide celebration. We had missed out retrieving a huge collection of photographs from the lower pane of our wooden shelf. The whole bunch had got soaked in water and I found it difficult to come to terms with the damages on those fine memories. 

Peeping out of the windows, we almost had the same feel of seeing the Christmas snow as bleaching powder was all over the place. The administration did a good job of ensuring that bleaching powder was put at all places. Psalms 23 says "He led us beside the still waters", but I believe God led us into the still waters, gave us an experience and then led us safely through it too. We are thankful to God for having led us through the still waters.

THE BATTLE WITH SEEMINGLY STILL WATERS- THE MID THRILL

I settled down at my make shift place and started working for a few days out of there. Drinking water and food were the only things for which I had to venture out everyday and prices were slowly climbing higher and higher. Ayanavaram in many ways was a God blessed place, with water, power and internet  for use, available all the time. There was no water on the roads there and the huge storm water and sewage canal that had been cleaned up and maintained by the Railways just before the floods, was in full cry, filled to the brim and it kept moving all the water.

Every time a huge downpour came down and kept going for a while, the water level in the garden in front of my make shift place, would rise and come up to the steps of the house and that would raise our eyebrows and accelerate our heart beats. My daughter and me would work with the pointed end of an old umbrella to remove the leaves clogging the drain and then wait for the water to rush through this. Once it went through, all the water would disappear and that would give us all a temporary relief until the next downpour. At least five times in a day and sometimes at night, I would step out and walk up to the canal and see the situation of the water.

I had done heavy recharges for calls, messages and internet 3G as soon as I had indications of the water level going up and so there was enough balance left. I had a helper from the hospital where my sister had worked, to help us move canned water on his cycle from wherever we could locate it. I had gone on a hunt with several shops and got rice and wheat flour wherever I could spot them, paying the rising prices.  Besides this, we also stocked noodles, biscuits, bread, eggs and bakery items. We had milk supply coming in from a shop nearby. We avoided any fresh non-vegeterian purchases and just used up what we already had. 

We could not take everything while we had rushed out of home. So I went back alone on three occasions to get several things like the hard drives, USB drives, cameras, camcorder, clothes, books for my daughter and other things out of my home. Walking through the water each time, for more than a kilometre, both ways, was an experience. But the water did not have strong currents like what South Chennai faced. It was pretty still and only had the little waves that people like us created while moving around. I noticed a lot of people leaving our area for safer places, probably anticipating another bout of heavy rain. Ministers, officials and politicians were all over the place at the entrance to the housing area. Firemen on several fire engines, water pumps and boats, still kept working day and night to pump out the water and to move people. Their state was really sad as they did not have any rest.

I saw a lady compel her daughter who was not keen at all, to pose for repeated photo shoots, while in the middle of the road flooded with water. A lot of people were walking around them, both ways, but that never perturbed her. Many times we see comedy scenes like these sandwiched between layers of tragedy. The main road to the housing area had been dug up on one side, for about 100 metres. This was to drain the water out from the housing area, to a point, and from there it was to be pumped into the main drain, the top of which had been opened up by digging up one side of the main road. All this was a sight..a real pathetic sight.

My father and sister had already gone back to our home after cleaning up the ground floor and getting all the furniture, appliances and other things back into their places. It had taken about six days for the water to be pumped out by the administration, out of the housing area. My friend Magesh was my rain consultant and he gave me fairly accurate indications for the next three days at any time. It really helped me plan and take evasive action. Magesh had warned me about the possibility of another BIG rain and so I had tried my best to dissuade my father and sister from going back. But they did not relent. In fact we had arguments and finally I had to give in. We had damages on the doors, cupboards and furniture at our home. The smell of the flood water still remained, in spite of all the cleaning that was done with lysol and other solutions. After a few days, we tried burning frankincense and that really helped to a big extent, but still, the strange smell wafted out of the rooms whenever the breeze blew.

After working for a few days out of the make shift place, I started going to office from there. Me, my daughter and my wife, decided to hang on there for a few more days, till my daughter's school re-opened. I had taken Magesh's advice and left office on November 23rd along with him on the first company bus at fifteen minutes to 6.00 pm. We were sitting next to each other and viewed the sky to gather signs. "Not that ominous", is what we thought as the bus took off. The drizzle started as we moved further and then there was steady rain. In almost half hour we were up on the Koyambedu flyover. The steady rain stopped and the drizzle took over and after sometime a swap happened and this kept going on and on. Somewhere ahead, a huge downpour had sent the traffic amuck and we were stuck on the flyover for almost an hour and a half. This weather behaviour was different from what Magesh had predicted.

We were in a quandary as to whether we should remain inside, or get out of the bus and find another way of getting home. A lot in the bus were in the same situation as we were. I saw a few girls take a decision and step out and that made us hasten our decision making process. Finally Magesh and me stepped out with the decision to head for the metro station. I had an umbrella and a hat with me. The burden of carrying the laptop was killing. We walked down the flyover and reached a point where there was about two feet of water, but the points closer to the divider were still clear. So we kept walking along that path and at one point we removed our shoes and had them in hand too and rolled up our pants. Magesh compelled me and took over the laptop from me. He carried it all the way up to the metro station.

We took the metro from the Ekattuthangal station with a sigh of relief that it was all over and in fifteen minutes the train took us to Koyambedu. This was my first ride in the metro and it was ironical that I had to do it with bare feet and a wet attire. We negotiated through the huge crowd standing at the station and then stood in the bee line with the shoes still in hand at the automated exit path of the station. We then slowly made our way out onto the main road, only to find that we had stepped into a frying pan after having run away from a fire. There was water almost to the level of our hip on the roads and no autorickshaws were plying. The traffic was so pathetic and we knew it would be foolish to get into any vehicle and get stuck. And so we chose to walk again along the foot path which was at a higher level and had about a feet of water over it. We did not know what all we were encountering below the water as our slow moving feet kept feeling, spotting and carefully finding their way through the projections of the broken concrete slabs and the steel rods of the same, that were jutting out. But we kept moving and both Magesh and me kept looking out for any loose slabs or man holes and kept warning each other. We moved forward and cleared the area where water was deep and got onto the middle of the road and kept walking further.

As we got closer to the main road, I called my driver and asked him to wait beyond the point where the traffic started, so that he would not get stranded getting into the traffic while coming to pick us up. So, we planned to take an autorickshaw to reach that point. We walked forward and met driver sharks who told us their exhorbitant rate of Rs.350 for a drive of hardly two kilometres. We tried negotiations, like two drenched crows, wet all over and desperate to get back to our nests. Having no other choice, we relented and got in and with the rain taking off with another heavy stint, we moved ahead and inched through the traffic. It was about 10.30 pm when I spotted my car. I dropped Magesh at a point close to his home and then we made our way to the make shift place. This encounter with an aggressive Mother Nature and with a friend who was always by my side, is something that will remain etched in my mind, forever.

You may read the next in sequence at:

http://cherryspace.blogspot.in/2016/04/the-battle-with-seemingly-still-waters_14.html

THE BATTLE WITH SEEMINGLY STILL WATERS- THE FIRST BOUT

The next day November 16th, was the day of trial.. a day on which, we found it difficult to come to terms with the reality that was happening in front of us. It had rained the whole night. We had always believed that our home was a bastion of sorts, a bastion of peace, where canopies served as a home for many birds and these chirped everyday for us.We had all the facilities for a good life. The neighbours were good and amiable and all these gave us the feeling of peace on the outside irrespective of the occasional rumble inside and we believed that that peace was always going to be intact. We always had believed that this secure feeling and this exterior peace was impregnable. 

Note: The photographs below were taken at different points between Nov 16th and until the point of exit on Nov 17th.

I got the first shock at 4 a.m that morning, when my sister staying at the ground floor of our home called and told me "Water has found a way inside". I went down and saw that the chink in the cordon was the toilet drain. In about the next one hour, we saw every drain in our home saying "Hello". But the water was creeping in slowly in millimetres. 

It was like watching the Ten Commandments movie where the Angel of Death crept into every house very slowly. We tried piling up bricks around the drain and then collected the water in small buckets and poured them out, but the slow invasion continued. Very soon, what started as a patch became a sheet of water. I had to move my sick father who was mostly confined to bed and my sister to the first floor where I was with my family. It's really interesting to see, how calamity brings members of a family again physically together, breaking the walls of ego and the little petty hatreds that remain for each other, as every one looks forward to holding onto life. Like smoking or drinking, calamity is a great leveler. 

The rains had stopped that Monday morning and so we waited thinking that the water level will consequently go down. I had not taken out my cars from our car porch as I believed that the water level would go down, but the water level was only increasing. Our area was one of the most low lying places and storm drains had all been eaten up over the years by the roads that were laid in the name of progess. So, the water was flowing in from other higher areas like Korattur, where people had cut open at random wherever they could, to the let the water move out from their places. But we could not judge the amount of water flowing in and when it would stop. We could never see it flowing anywhere and the increase in level could not be spotted at any moment.

We moved a lot of things from the ground floor to the first floor and also pulled up a lot of furniture, bedding and appliances to the loft or to a higher level at the ground floor itself. There was no power and our land line connection was down. I kept the invertors still running and the central WiFi that was at the ground floor was also kept up and running. 

Sometime during Monday, I had listed down the documents and other important things that we had to carry in case of an evacuation. This flood had taken us by surprise and we could not plan the water pumping to our overhead tank. So we just had about half a tank of water. Me and my daughter started collecting rain water at the terrace and used it for flushing toilets and washing our hands and feet. 

The canned water supply from the shop close to our home, was getting tight and that made the situation even more grave. The toilet flushes were not working properly and that really gave me creeps. There were times when I flushed and waited long to see whether the whole thing was going down. It was taking real time and I was pretty sure that with the passage of time, all flushes would just get stuck. 

At any given moment, I had multiple tasks in my bucket for which my family was following up with me. In my observation, calamity brings in more work for the male folk as the women don't have much to do, especially in the kitchen as vegetables and other essentials soon deplete in shops and the family will have to thrive on oats, rice gruel or bread. The male folk will be the ones who will end up doing all the physical movement of furniture,appliances and other things and also attending to things that don't work. They will also often get lambasted by the women for bad decisions taken :)

By Tuesday afternoon, we had almost knee deep water inside the ground floor. The school ground behind our house was a sight by itself. It was full and the level there was more than the level of water inside our ground floor and it stretched for some eighty metres. It was a risk that way, as the pressure of the whole column of water, could lead to a collapse of the wall that lay between our home and the school. I had not slept the whole of Monday night, as I often went down to check the water level and it's creeping up the steps using a torch. And looking at the condition on Tuesday, my wife and I decided that we should move out. But it was not easy to convince my father and my sister. Decision making is one thing and getting everyone to fall in line with the decision is something else. Both involves time and have to be done quickly while calamity keeps biting our pants.

We knew that our cars could not be taken out as the water was pretty deep now and it would be much more deeper on the roads.I had asked my driver for help in bringing an SUV, when we would be deciding to move out. But the decision was still hanging and the water level was going up. Meanwhile me and my wife started packing all the essentials. My sister joined us too, but without being really convinced. My father who was mostly confined to bed, had seen the flood water only on Monday early morning when it had started creeping in and so I thought he did not know the gravity. I spoke to my sister and made her take him around the verandah of our first floor and that way he got a view of the road in the front and the school ground behind our home.

The decision was taken soon as he was convinced that holding on for more time was risky. I called my driver immediately and asked him for a vehicle. He told me that no vehicle providers were willing to come in, as the water level was pretty high at places now, between my home and the main road. The main road was like almost a kilometre from my home. So that meant that we were actually stranded. I heard from my driver that a lot of residents from our areas had started blocking traffic, in protest of the apathy of the officials and the administration, to what was happening inside the area. This had been happening since Monday afternoon. 

Many fire engines and pump sets were brought in after several politicians and officials visited the place and the firemen had already dug up a new drain beside the road, for the water to flow out of our housing area. They had also blocked vehicles from coming into the colony and were only allowing ambulances. So it struck me that calling an ambulance was the only way out. We called up for the ambulance giving them a picture of my father's condition and they were on their way.

I had called my driver to be around while we did the evacuation. I had asked him first to be near the main road, lest the ambulance driver found it difficult to reach home. The ambulance was let in by the police and it had come in to a point, half way between our home and the main road. Beyond that point, the driver was not sure whether to proceed as the water was pretty deep and could get into the engine. I called my driver and he told me that he was negotiating with the ambulance driver to try and get him to come to my home. 

Finally I stepped out and walked towards the place where the ambulance was supposed to have come. As I moved forward, I found that the water was almost up to the hip for me. Firemen and boats were all over the place on the road that was parallel to our street and I got in touch with them. I found that it took time for me to manoeuvre through the deep water and so I got on to one of the boats. I discussed on a plan with them to bring my father on the boat to the point where the ambulance was waiting and then get him in. They were fine with it.I also asked them about moving the food items and other things that we had packed for evacuation in the same boat. The firemen were pretty clear that they would not permit this and that they would pick up my father only after going around and picking up a few more old and senile individuals who had requested them earlier. They would not allow an exclusive boat for a family. It was like a luxury offer that we were demanding. So I knew that my plan had bombed while I was in the boat, but nevertheless I remained in the boat and asked them to come home. 

Meanwhile, my driver had convinced the ambulance driver and brought him near the gate of my house. So I took the help of the firemen who had come home, to move my father into the ambulance. The ambulance driver was about to take off after I got in with my father, but I asked him to wait. But seeing the amount of things and food items we were taking along with us, he lost his cool and started accelerating the engine, as he had been of the impression that this was an evacuation purely because my father was sick. But we managed to talk to him and got in and also got in all that we had packed too.

The ambulance had to move forward, as a reverse could slow down or stop the engine and water could get in. On the other hand, moving forward meant taking another street to reach the main road. But we moved ahead as we had no other choice. This actually led us into deeper waters as the area we were driving through, was much more low lying. The driver accelerated and I could see, sitting in the front seat, the waves getting created because of our vehicle. These waves caused the cars parked on either side to wobble like toys floating in water and they came and banged against the ambulance and then against the wall of the houses. I felt as though I was watching a movie scene. People from within the houses were cursing us as we were generating waves into their houses and knocking down their household articles.

 I wanted to empathize with them but the ambulance driver asked me to look straight and be ruthless. We moved forward and got onto the main road and there everything was fine. It had been two days since the rain had stopped and the rest of the city looked normal except areas like the place where our home was, because it was so low lying and almost hip deep water remained there still. We drove and reached my wife's house at Ayanavaram and camped there. What could have finished like a simple TV serial assumed dimensions of a big Hollywood movie, purely because we took time to take decisions. This was the first BIG rain, but we never knew that the best was yet to come.

You may read the next in sequence at:

http://cherryspace.blogspot.in/2016/04/the-battle-with-seemingly-still-waters.html

THE BATTLE WITH SEEMINGLY STILL WATERS - THE TRAILER

Last Saturday, while at breakfast, my daughter told me about a dream that had haunted her the previous night. It was about the makeshift place where we had camped during the November and December 2015 rains.That place had been a blessing for us actually, as water never came onto the roads around that place. But in the dream, she could see hip level water inside that house but with no water in the garden outside the house, which was at a much lower level than the house. She was trying to understand the logic behind the water levels, but then I told her, that dreams do defy logic. Beyond the logic, the terrible fact is that flood related dreams continue to haunt us often.

I wish to share my experience during the floods that ravaged Chennai in November and December 2015 as a series of posts, so that it will be easier for you to read through.

I had a tryst with the flood waters initially, when I had stepped out into it before Diwali in the first week of November, to attend my classmate's funeral. Until then, most of us in Chennai were of the impression that 2015 would be a worst year with very little rainfall. The 12th Main Road in Anna Nagar, Chennai, which is normally a green heaven with a beautiful green canopy, turned out to be a water hell. While my car was inching through the traffic, the water level was almost above the wheels. About twenty metres from where my car stood, I could see a tree slowly slant and fall as it's roots had got soaked in the water that had been there for a more than a day. It's top part fell slowly on one of the cars that stood ahead. I could see a few other trees that had already fallen down, in the adjacent streets. It was an unbelievable sheet of water that I was witnessing that day. My driver tried a few other streets too to come out of that place, but all were in the same flooded state. I could not proceed to the cemetery and I had to desperately get back home.

The first major encounter started while I was at my church at Koyambedu, Chennai, on November 15th Sunday evening doing the Christmas singing rehearsals. I was sitting facing the doors and I could see water filling up in the volleyball court. To me, it seemed to be abnormal and rare. There was something so eerie about it, that kept tapping on my mind, a foreboding of something big coming soon. The rains had something peculiar in them. It was not the rains that Chennai had seen where there would be a romantic drizzle and then a steady pour and then a downpour. These had a ferocious way of opening even if the bouts were small and when the downpour was long, they gave out real ominous signals.

That evening I had to drive to a tailor shop at Anna Nagar, to give measurements for our Christmas Choir attire and then drop a few singers back to their homes. I had checked with one person about the water level around that shop and he had told me that everything was fine. But once I entered into that road, which was a one way, I knew it was the next hell that I was into. I was not able to judge the depth of the troughs on the road as the water sheets were so misleading. 

I finished my work with the shop and ventured into the streets of Anna Nagar to drop my choir mates. There was no power in these streets and the water level was menacing. I was not sure up to what stage I should keep venturing inside as I felt I was getting into more deeper waters. I have this flaw in my decision making many times that when I see danger right in front, that my sincerity numbs my thinking. I felt that I should take my choir mates to their home even though the water was deep and so I kept moving and finally reached the place and dropped them. But after that, I had no clue how to get out of that place alone and I had to keep asking people while I drove. The water was so deep all around and finally I made my way back to the main road where the water level was a shade better. It was then that it struck me that my choir mates had never offered to get down at the point where the water level was less while at the entry of their street. They could have got down and walked instead of the car getting into the risk of getting stranded in the water. But they did not :). I rode further and with great difficulty picked up my wife from her house and drove back home in the rain. The downpour was too much for the wipers to handle. 

The best part of nature is that you never know that what you saw anytime was just a trailer of bigger things to come.

You may read the next in sequence at:

http://cherryspace.blogspot.in/2016/04/he-led-us-into-and-through-still-waters_5.html

A POEM FOR MY POET FRIEND

KINDNESS IS THE BIGGEST THING

Nice connecting with you all after a long time. I hope the rains that went by, treated my Chennai friends with some kindness and I really wish that each of you are back to your normal rhythm of life.

After having to vacate home twice during the floods in Chennai, we got back home just a few days before Christmas. Staying at a make shift place, we had waited for two weeks to slip by after water had been pumped out of our colony. Christmas this time was pretty dull. I did not even push myself to put a star even though my wife had requested me twice. Putting up the Christmas tree was out of question as it was already the 21st of December. I believe my sister portrayed more spirit as she put up a star at the ground floor of our home. My wife also never gave up her tryst with baking cakes. I tried to liven up things on Christmas day by playing the Gunter Kullman Christmas Choir numbers for a while and it seemed to mollify the situation a little. Thus Christmas this year slipped by without a big impact.

As was the normal practice, we shared the Christmas cakes with our neighbours. And this time we gave it to a more number of them, because the floods brought a connect with a few more neighbours. It is a popular observation that if we have the habit of smoking or consuming wine or whiskey, it's a great leveling platform where irrespective of position and class, many times people seem to bind while they are into these. Calamities offer another leveling platform bringing together people from different levels in the society to enquire and help each other. Thus our cakes found their way to more houses this time.

The floods gave me a true picture of the unity in diversity, right there in my colony. We had a huge community of Muslims who went all over the place offering food and clothes. They even opened the mosque for anyone to stay. Many Hindus and Christians stayed there for days. Looking at the social circle that I am in touch mostly, I have to admit that other than my few relatives and just three individuals from my huge church community, nobody really called up to enquire about our state. This church is where I go to every Sunday and it is for this church that I sing in their choir. I don't blame them. May be they have called up more worthy friends. Probably our colony does not feature in the so called elite list for being considered worthy enough for a call. We Christians have always been ordinary people claiming extra ordinary things. We get too worked up worshiping God and singing for Him, that we forget our neighbour. This is the picture that I see. May be I am yet to see a better picture of the Christian group around me. It is not that we expect all our friends to wade through the water and reach us. At one point, we were running out of ideas on how to move my father out of home after the water levels had gone up and vehicles were refusing to come inside the colony. The main road was a good half a kilometre away and the vehicles would only come till there. Friends could also help by giving ideas. I have to ask myself if I would also have behaved the same way. However, I did hear about our church extending help to several flood affected families.

That apart, the person who played a key role in evacuating us the first time was my driver, a core Hindu, who offered to walk all the way from his house through the hip level water and then again wade through knee deep water in our colony. He could have always told us that he was not in a position to move out of his home. We had a tough time convincing an ambulance driver to come into our colony due to the deep water level, but it was our driver who called up and convinced the ambulance driver to move into the deep water to take my sick father out of our home to a safe place. I truly consider it a great help that he did. The second time when we evacuated, it was another uncle, a Hindu converted to a Christian, who helped us in the rush hour to pack all things and keep them at an elevated level in our ground floor and then leave on time. It really helped to save a lot of damages. He was the same person who bailed us out of the tsunami in Velankanni in 2004, driving all the way from Chennai and braving an accident en route. We also had a person from the hospital where my sister worked, who came to our make shift shelter almost every day and provided us with essentials.

My college friends with whom I am connected in Whatsapp, frequently enquired and kept my morale high. Some of them really ventured into helping people in distress. Coincidentally, all of these good humans were mostly Hindus and Muslims.

Besides these good angels, two atheists called up and enquired. One of them called up daily and gave me very accurate indications of the weather forecast. It really helped me to plan in advance and take drastic action, while also giving me to time to convince my dear ones. This friend even went to several places to rescue people and carry out relief efforts. Sometimes atheists are much more better humans than the ones like me who scrupulously follow religion. I am not sure if I would venture out in the same fashion.

Sometime after we got back home after the first evacuation, I noticed while standing in my car porch, that a family staying on the street opposite to our home , about ten metres away, were all looking towards our first floor roof. I wondered what was there that attracted their attention. A few moments later, one of them walked up and requested me for a few coconut branches for their religious function. I opened my gates for them and they went out happy with what they wanted. There have been many Hindu friends who have come with similar requests and we have always made it a point to give them. 

A few days past Christmas, when I was sitting with my father in his bedroom, I noticed a white hat suddenly appear through the small opening that the curtains left near the window. It made me cautious as we were always careful about strangers stepping into our home, although we just left the gate with a latch that could be opened from outside. This opening action of our gate, always gave out a loud sound and so we would easily get to know about anyone who entered. But I had not heard anyone enter as yet.I waited for a while and again the white hat appeared and moved aside. I called out to enquire who it was. My sister hearing my call, went out and saw a young Muslim boy standing near the window and calling out "Aunty". She tried to understand what he wanted and then gave him whatever he was looking for. He was looking for some nice stiff bamboo branches and this was for his teacher in the mosque to whack students like him when they failed to learn their Quran lessons. He went home with a warm smile on his face and with a handful of bamboo branches. A few days later he again him with his few friends and they took some more.  Days later when I was accompanying my sister to a nearby shop, I heard a boy call out "Hey, see that cane stick Aunty". It was the same boy Mohammad Nazir telling his friend. We waved at him.

More than being a Christian, it is this co-existence with people from different beliefs, that I love. This period of calamity gave me that picture, that belief, that in many humans, whether an atheist or a person pursuing a religion, there is that inclination to do something good. So I believe we don't have to really debate whether God is there or not there. Kindness exists and that is the biggest thing. How does anything else matter?

ANOTHER BIRTHDAY GIFT FROM MY LITTLE ONE

My little one is not little anymore but still she is my little one. These words from my little one are big words for me.