Over the last few days Mumbai – the city of dreams, has turned into a city of (d)rains! My friend who studies in IITB said the network was down since the router room was filled with water. He had no other great problems. Well, their hostel didn’t collapse. There was no power shutdown except for an hour or two on the evening it started raining. Except for regular food supplies, their mess was open and they had food to eat 24/7. What else do the cream of the country need?! Obviously, they had everything that would allow them to lead a normal life. A few luxuries had to wait for a while. That’s all. Good for them. But that’s not the case elsewhere in the city.
There were people who went home from office after two and half days! I am told by a few regular Mumbaikars that such situations are common during the rainy season. NDTV was interviewing people stuck on the railway station platforms. They were there for one full day! Seeing the photos made my heart sink. 94 cms of rain. Cherapunji used to recieve 91 cms annually and it was the district with the highest rainfall for years together. I don’t remember any other district featuring in our text books. (Aunty Prabha, my geography teacher at school will be very happy at this memory of mine!). Later on, due to large-scale deforestation (we shall take up this issue some other time), Cherapunji lost out to Mawsynram. As things stand today, both these districts lost out to a city which received all this and much more rainfall in just a day! Are we playing around with nature so much that it punishes us like this?
During a phone call between Sam ( Sameer, my friend who’s studying in IIT and am proud of him) we were discussing and trying to pin down someone for this disaster. I mean how can everybody go scot free when we there is such large-scale suffering?! Someone ought to be blamed right? I ain’t wrong. I never did any wrong. It’s that someone who is to be blamed for all this. So, we started blaming the following people:
- The Met department: They did not forecast this. It’s so simple to forecast yar. Our country cannot even do this much. How does one forecast? Collect all the historical data over the last 100, or take even the last 1000 years data and apply your theory of probability to it and extrapolate the future from it. Future, we clearly understand, is not entirely a result of the past. On such extrapolations, the department would have concluded that Mumbai will have 25mm of rainfall this monsoon. A slight mathematical error or factor of safety as the design engineers would call it, we could stretch it upto 50mm. But, where the $%#^ is 94 cms? This was not predictable.
- The Government: Our houses are flooded for 3 days and nothing’s done to help us out of it. Did I even think where the Government officials work or live before expecting help from them? That’s not my concern. I have put them where they are by voting for them. They need to help me out. That’s it. So what if it’s my house thats inundated with water? They should drain it!
- The Police department: Commissioner Roy very rightly pointed out that 21 Police Stations were under water because of the rains. Despite that, there were officials from his department on boats and on foot (maybe he meant swimming) on the roads helping people to safety. He claims to have saved 1000 people on that fateful day. There were 10,000 other people who were stranded. NDTV promptly interview a sample of 5 from the 10k people who naturally complained against the police. These people could only complain, but a certain section of people in Kurla actually got hold of Mr. Roy’s neck. It was Live on NDTV again!
- The Military Services: That ONGC offshore at Bombay High was on fire with danger to almost 500 people on-board and the Navy was concentrating on getting that situation under control. The Army and Air Force were of no use since the city was flooded. Still the Army did their duty to a great extent. And the Navy sprung into action by providing boats to pull people to safety.
Still, 900+ people died. Many more missing. Almost the entire city of Mumbai was worried about someone or the other not turning up home.
Thousands were stuck in the airport. Air India was being abused on National TV Networks. Indian Airlines earned some flak too. But did anyone realise that the worst affected area in Mumbai was Vakola. That is the area where the airlines staff stays. The pilot of your plane might be more worried about his wife and children back home than you passengers!
Thus ended our phone call. With both of us pondering over why we should blame someone at all?
Why are we always wanting to blame someone for these problems? Why don’t we make sure that the candidates for election have these issues as one of the prime issues that they will solve during their tenure if they get elected? We know that our system is not built to take a simple breakdown. Natural disasters of this scale are out-of-question to be handled in the idealistic way we expect them to happen. Atleast, we see some DMCs (Disaster Management Committee) and NGOs here and there which are trying their best to do something about it. They are still in the nascent stage. Let’s give them some time to grow up and completely support us. Till then what are we to do in such cases?
Learn from Mumbaikars. Mumbaikars being what they are helped each other to safety and normalcy is slowly being restored to proceedings not because of anybody else. They knew they had to help themselves out of this situation. They have seen worse situations than these. In 1992, there were six serial blasts in key locations in the city. The next day the city was back to work as if nothing had happened. No, it was not apathy to the victims. It was the attitude that “Come what may, Life goes on”. And it’s because of this attitude that Mumbai is what it is today. People come to the city with the intention of making it big. Be it movies or business. But I have a question.. with all these devastation happening on one side of the city. The BSE Sensex as if unconnected to these happenings continued to rise and breached the 7600 mark. How does this happen? Are we so disconnected from the ground realities that such things are allowed to happen? Or is it just a glorification of “Come what may, Life must go on”?!
My final thought on this. It has all happened. 900+ people have died. Every Mumbaite cried that day, atleast in his heart, seeing his city submerged in water. 94 cms is not natural rainfall at all. It’s an indication from Mother Nature that we are doing something really nasty with her and so this backlash. What are we doing all this for? Is it all worth it?
Tomorrow: Song of Youth – Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam