Time-Zones Apart
I was in South Africa in 2018 when the worst floods in recent memory hit my quaint, sleepy little town, Chalakudy, in Kerala. India.
Chalakudy isn’t exactly below sea level. It’s on the foothills of the Western Ghats with the never-dry Chalakudy River flowing through its southern outskirts. It’s surrounded by thick woods of the Periyar and Silent Valley National Parks to the west and about fifteen kilometres east lies the Arabian Sea.
Chalakudy might be a low-lying town like most Kerala towns close to the coast, but it’s not really prone to severe floods.
I was on a call with Mum and Dad on the evening of the 14th of August. It had been raining consistently for about three days and the Met department had forecasted a few more days of rain.
“Sounds like a typical Kerala Monsoon!” I laughed.
It did.
Indians living on the West Coast of the country are quite used to this. Consistent rains for days on end; floods in Mumbai; landslides along the Konkan Railway. Welcome to the new school season.
There were patches of water logging along National Highway 47, a major highway that split Chalakudy right across the middle from North to South. There were a few traffic jams during the daytime rush hour. At night, there was a lineup of interstate lorries that stretched a few kilometres.
Again, this was not unusual during the monsoons.
“There’s a bit of water in the yard,” Dad had explained. “There’s a bit of water logging in our backyard too. My students can’t take the shortcut from the KSRTC Bus Station and need to come around the front gate now.”
Dad’s been running a very successful English Academy from our home for close to thirty-five years now. There was a shortcut from the bus terminus to our home through our slightly big backyard. Our backyard was a vast expanse of prime land that was adorned with coconut trees. Every developer we knew of wanted a piece of it.
My folks are holding on to selling the land, stretching it out like the elastic waistband of a tattered Jockey trunk on its last two atoms.
We had made a walkway out of red sandstone and a little concrete that cut right down the yard from the back gate of our property to our home. The walkway was a slightly elevated platform that wasn’t affected by a little waterlogging. It took five minutes to get home from the bus station through this shortcut, which would otherwise take about twenty minutes.
It was a serious shortcut.
This was now underwater.
Again, this wasn’t new. We’ve had the odd day of heavy rain induced water logging in the past.
“The reservoirs have filled up and they might have to open up the dams to release water. We should head up to Athirapilly to take in the views once they do,” Dad added, referring to the stunning Athirapilly Waterfalls that was about twenty kilometres west of our home.
And on that note, we hung up. I poured myself a glass of wine later that evening, watched a few episodes of Sons of Anarchy over dinner and called it a night.
Life was good. Or so I thought.
And then it started getting really crazy real quick.
South Africa is three and a half hours behind India. Around 4 a.m., my phone buzzed, partially waking me up. I peered at my phone through groggy eyes. The message was from Mum on our family WhatsApp group. I ignored it and went back to sleep.
Must be a good morning message. Ugh! I’m going to have to remind them of our time difference again!
I had barely drifted off again when my phone buzzed again. And then again. And again. Messages were pouring in relentlessly.
Something wasn’t right.
I sat up. It was 4:15. It was -10 ˚C outside.
“Water’s entered the bedroom,” read the first message.
If I wasn’t awake before, I was then!
“There’s ankle-deep water,” read another message.
You need at least 1 — 1.2 meters of water from the ground up to have ankle-deep water in the bedroom. That’s more than the shallow end of a regular swimming pool.
“We’re turning the classroom into a makeshift storeroom by stacking the benches and desks on top of each other and trying to salvage essential things like our mattresses, some clothes, and important documents on top of the stacked desks,” read another message.
“We’re filling up as many cans of clean water as we can.”
“We’re packing fruits and veggies into cartons and moving upstairs with Bagheera.” Bagheera is our dog.
We lived in a biggish two-storeyed house that was built by my grandfather in the 1950s. Apart from a few minor additions, the house was pretty much in the same condition as it was seventy years ago.
We were not sure if the building materials had what it took to survive the onslaught that was looming.
The Athirapilly waterfalls now looked like this. Every time I see this photograph, I shudder.
I rang Dad. He answered.
“The water level is rising constantly,” he said sounding calm. “We’re in the process of moving upstairs. There’s almost knee-deep water downstairs now. It’s dangerous, especially with the possibility of snakes around. Rescue boats cannot come to pick anyone up now. The currents are too strong.”
Fuck!
“There’s been no power since last night. I don’t know how much longer our phones can last. Even the cellphone towers have been disrupted in some places.”
And that was it. There was radio silence for the next three days.
It didn’t help that pictures of bridges collapsing, schools badly underwater, and people struggling to get to safety started doing the rounds.
It was excruciating. It was stressful. And I felt completely useless and helpless.
Watching the news was worse. It was all doom and gloom there. People were dying all over the state. The army was called to airlift people stranded on rooftops.
Once the currents eased, rescue teams started arriving by boat to carry people to higher ground. There were too many people and too few boats.
“Omana Chechi’s family was rescued by boat,” we were told, once power and cellular networks were restored a few days later. Aunty Omana was our neighbour who lived in a single-storeyed house that was pretty much underwater.
The aftermath.
The wall and the gate lights were all submerged. My family stood on the first-floor balcony, watching the horror unfold in front of them.
“We saw books flow away with the currents,” Mum said. “Dad’s textbooks for class, books you had collected since you were little, extensive NatGeo magazines.” The pain in her voice was palpable.
I had close to six hundred books in a beautifully, almost OCD-esque, arranged home library. I had shelves specifically made for books that I had been collecting since I was four.
There were several first editions and rare collectors edition books that I had gotten from different yard sales and from bookstore closures.
My shelves had toppled over and I lost pretty much all my books.
Our electric appliances were scattered throughout the house. We found our washing machine in the middle of our backyard, our refrigerator ended up in Dad’s classroom, and our television was close to the front gate.
We had to call in a cleaning crew to get rid of the mud and silt that had been deposited all over the house. We weren’t equipped to handle the snakes and other reptiles that could be hiding under the mud.
It took my family another three days to move back downstairs.
The state government did pay everyone close to ₹100,000 to pay for property damage. They paid an additional ₹50,000 odd to repair or restore damaged solar panels and batteries.
They had sent a building inspector to check for potential construction damage and to decide whether our house was on the verge of collapse or not. That was nice, given that there was massive damage all over the state. Houses not just collapsed but were washed away.
“Let me tell you,” he explained, “I’ve seen a lot of damage on this street itself. Your neighbours themselves are going to need a lot of repairs and restoration. Your house, however, it’s an absolute miracle. It’s survived a battering by Mother Nature and mind you, Mother Nature does pack a punch. There’s just one tiny crack on the eastern side, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was there even before the floods. It just shows how good the quality of construction and the materials were back in the day. Today, a small breeze can pretty much blow away half of the houses! Incredible!”
Perspectives.
Moments like these are dreadful. Especially if you’re living several time zones away from home.
It compels you to pause and take stock. Take stock of yourself. Take stock of your family. Take stock of the things you hold dear.
It makes you realize that what’s there today may not be tomorrow. It makes you evaluate your life from a different perspective.
I was happy everyone came out of this harrowing ordeal pretty much unscathed. Physically and emotionally. Not many of their friends could say the same.
Once I was done celebrating their survival, I then found time to mourn the loss of all my books.
Goodbye The Magic Faraway Tree! Goodbye Limited Edition the Illustrated Children’s Classics! Goodbye Orhan Pamuk! Goodbye Leon Uris!
And most importantly, goodbye A Brief History of Time’s coloured hardcover limited edition. That book was what made me a scientist. That book was my Bible.
Shit still hurts.
