Cyclone Baaz(December 2nd 2005)

Its Me back to square again... I am yet to watch movies that have come recently into theaters.I have not got aright partner to go for a movie after my friend Navin left to Delhi for his tranisition from Sapient Technologies.I heard couple of movies that have come recently are good.Kanda Naal muthal and Thavamai Thavamirundhu are doing good at Box office.But this time definitely i am not here for a movie review.This time with more interesting topic "Recent rains in Chennai"..Is that an interesting topic to speak on? No i dont think..Because it has made people suffer a lot..Last month it was the turn of North Chennai and now it is South Chennai's turn. Worst affected regions in a week before rain are kotturpuram,Velachery,Madipakkam,Adyar.
Still i remember it was friday night.All was set ready for the cyclone Baaz to hit Chennai. There were severe warnings from the Metrological department for the two days starting from Wednesday.Right from the afternoon of friday it started drizzling.I guess it was some where around evening when the intensity of the rainfall started increasing.Having been seated inside the Sterling Towers where my office is situated i could not realise how big it was.Around 8.00 in the night, i got a call from my father saying its already raining heavily.He asked me to move to any of my relatives place within city or asked me if its possible to stay back in office and thats how came to know of the intensity of the rainfall.So having come to know its raining heavily, i decided to take up a Cab from office to reach home.So i booked my cab and as cabs service will start only from 9.00 i had to stay back in office.
As there was a production release due on the following Saturday, sudenly some issues pertaining to requirements started coming in from Onsite and they asked to pull back some of the code.As i was the part of that requirement,i was asked to wait. So me and my project manager had call with US team and finally decided that onsite team will do the changes suggested by us on our behalf as there was a heavy cyclone prediction in Chennai.So i had to leave around 10.00 from office.By the time i reached all cabs were already left for their first trip.So i had to wait patiently for another 1 hour for the cabs to return back to my office after dropping the people at their respective destinations.As the city was affected very much it was difficult for the cabs driver to return back in time due to lower visiblity levels.
Every 15 to 20 minutes i kept on getting calls from my father asking me update on my status of reaching home. It was as if a team lead asking for the daily status of the work..But this was quite unusual which happened at every 20 minutes interval..But i should admit that they made calls out of their anxiety.I informed my father that under any circumstances, i will come back home as i need to have dinner and almost all the shops near by our office as well in the city were closed.
To people who dont know my recent food habits,i have started skipping my lunch nowadays.But i cannot say that to be in diet.Because,the following equation will prove that,Hey come on dont worry its not a mathematic or chemical equation...Just a normal logic..lunch = 0=>lunch=Dinner-Dinner=0=>Dinner=Dinner+lunch So for dinner i take food equivalent to Dinner and Lunch.
Now coming back to the topic, so atlast around 11.20 i was given a cab.I was accompanied by three people..But its usual in IT companies to arrange Chennai Darshan if they go by cabs from office.So i was taken to velachery,Pallikaranai enroute my home.Only when i reached velachery i started realising the words told by my father after seeing the flooded streets.My car was almost half filled with water.Had i opened the doors of the car, water would have entered into car.Luckily i was accompanied by one of my colleagues from my project.His name is Vikas.He requires a special mention here which you will come to know of in due course.We both were discussing better we could have stayed back in office.But it was too late for us to take such a decision because driver had almost crossed velachery.He denied taking back the car as the streets are worst affected.
Guy from velachery got down and car started heading towards pallikaranai.Pallikaranai was far better when compared to Velachery.Now it was my chance to get down at Nanganallur.Driver told me that its difficult to get into Nanganallur as already keezhkattalai and madippakam are floating with water.He promised to drop me at Keezhkattalai Bus stand if i am more keen on going to Nanganallur.Immediately i turned down his offer and decided to go along with Vikas to his home as he is at Tambaram...But we were not sure whether we will reach tambaram safely.When i called up home just to inform my father that i would not return back home night, i came to know that water has entered into my house for almsot 1 feet.Luckily we had retained both the first and ground floor.So we did not suffer much.
Entire city was out of power and started going out of control.Driver even though with poor visibility managed to go in Tambaram-Velachery Main road. There was no sign of rain stopping.It kept on aggravating. As this was an impromptu visit, we decided to take up our dinner somewhere out as we thought we should not disturb his mother at this point of time..Because clock has struck 12 long back.So we asked the driver to take the cab to some hotel nearby.But unfortunately we could not locate one.Vikas house was at Camp road in Tambaram.Before we could reach there, seeing the water logging at Tambaram Velachery road driver said its difficult for the vehicle to move further.Moreover his home was not nearer to go by walk.As well we thought we would not venture out as its already dark in the night without street lights.So vikas called back his home to inform them that we are not coming.Driver said we will stay in the vehicle the entire night.Suddenly to our suprise we saw a van coming towards us.They informed the driver that we can go ahead as the place is risk free..Driver started back his cab and dropped us in camp road.It was hardly 5 minutes walk from that place to his home.
I was welcomed by his mom,brother and sister cordially.I was given dresses to change and vikas ensured that i am comfortable.Unfortunately i was not in a postition to wear his trousers or shirts as he was lean.His mother went into kitchen and started preparing dinner for us by lighting the candle.It was a candlelight dinner.Really i enjoyed the dinner.It was a typical North Indian Roti with Sabji and salad. I think i am having north indian roti after a period of 7 months after i left mumabi.So enjoyed it a lot.I will not forget this dinner ever in my life. I was very much hungry as i didnt have anything in the afternoon.So i had around 6 rounds of Ghee roti..After troubling his mother by making her wake up around 2.00 to prepare food, it was time to have a nap. I thought rain would stop in the morning.As expected, it stopped.Vikas dropped me at Tambaram Station after having a cup of good tea.They compelled me to have break fast, but as it was saturday i dont have break fast, so refused and started heading towards home.
I reached home by taking auto from Station.As the auto travelled through the streets of Nanganallur i realised the damage caused by the low depression that resulted from Cyclone Baaz. My father,sister were already engaged in draining out the water manually. Washing machines and other house articles were comfortable as they were lying in the bed.I started helping out them with draining the water.It took almost three hours for us to drain the waters.As i had to stand in waters for more than three hours, i had to suffer from fever and cold from Monday for three days.But now i am ok.Thats the reason for updating you all with the latest rains in Chennai very lately.
Even we all expected a sharp showers this week end.But luckily it moved towards Vedaranyam and chennai was not affected much with this. Had chennai been affected with this definitely damage would have been more.But Chennai Corporation was ready to face it by making as many relief camps as possible. I remember writing in my earlier mails regarding predictions by Metrological department on "Metrology-Is it a science of Measurement or Just a Science of Prediction?".If you wanna have a look on that visit my previous blogs
I guess now even Indian Metrological department is doing a good job in this regard.
I guess this mail would clearly tell you how bad the recent rains have affected the city.