6.6 - Surviving Terrible Tuesday

Background: This was written the week of Terrible Tuesday on 29 July 2005. There was complete chaos that day (Tuesday, 26 July 2005), but my family and I were lucky not to get into significant trouble that day. That was not the case with many of my friends and extended family members.

Here is the archive link.

My wife was stuck on the top of Parel flyover for 2 hours from around 4.00PM, trying to get to Matunga. Not having moved an inch, she turned around and went to the ITC Grand at Parel for a much-needed loo and coffee break, after some taxi drivers removed the intervening divider stones. While waiting to get back into the car at around 6.30PM (she finally reached home 2 hours later), she saw an out-of-towner who wanted to go to Lifestyle at Phoenix, angrily yelling at his driver for coming late. Bijal tried to tell him that leaving ITC, at that time, was insane, but he refused to listen and drove off with his family. Tourists can be so stupid sometimes!

At midnight, my Dad and I finally decided to drive home to Matunga, from Girgaum. We actually reached the flyover after Phoenix Mills in 7 minutes flat - no traffic, no water-logging, a few stray people and complete “sannata” all along the way. Seeing a flowing river below, we turned back, and then tried Tilak Bridge, but turned back halfway between Siddhi Vinayak and Shivaji Park, then from Portuguese church as well and later from below the Parel flyover, having reached there via the S bridge past Jacob Circle. Having turned back from the Bhoiwada road after Tata Hospital, we finally went onto RAK Road, reached Wadala and parked our car on a free pavement and hoofed it up, reaching home at 2.00AM. 

We were the lucky ones. My sister’s husband was stuck between Andheri and Santacruz, alone in his car for over 16 hours. Bijal’s brother reached his home in Andheri, at 2.00AM after having walked 10 kms. My mother-in-law was stuck until Thursday, in Nallasopara, where she had gone for some work. My 80-years old uncle walked back to Matunga from Masjid.

There was complete chaos when we walked from Wadala to Matunga, but it needed the morning light to truly appreciate the madness. There were vehicles of all kinds, clogging both sides of each and every big or small road in Wadala, Five Gardens and Matunga, along with crowds of people, walking, trying to find a way home. Some were palpably lost - like the guy who thought Khalsa college was Ruparel college and that he was in Matunga West. Most cars hadn’t moved for over 12 hours. People who had hit Don Bosco by 8PM had reached Aurora (200 meters away) by 8AM. There was no food, no water and most cellphone batteries had died down.

Except for the people who helped each other and locals who tried to help those who were stuck, everyone and everything failed us. The weather services, traffic police, the fire-brigade, most cellular networks, the land-lines, the railways, Reliance Energy, the politicians, everyone…

I know one thing about this city of ours. Whenever disaster strikes, we cannot and should not expect any help from our authorities and services. We must assume that we will be on our own and each one of us needs to have some sort of a Plan B in place for such situations. Or pray to God, or whatever…..

PS: Those who have waded through water, please talk to your local GP for doxycycline prophylaxis against leptospirosis.

Addendum: This was a black day for our city. People died, cars were totaled and there was considerable loss of property. While it has led to a mental state of the slightest panic the moment there is a little more than expected rain in the years following this incident, the media and citizen outrage has pushed the authorities into taking significant measures to prevent flooding. Each year, the newspapers and television channels track the desilting and other similar efforts quite assiduously during the month of May and keep the BMC and its workers on their toes.