Chennai, the unique, wonderous city that introduced me to journalism, freedom and politics, has been flooded for weeks. It has had the highest rainfall in a 100 years, perhaps a sign of climate change, but the chaos is purely due to short-sighted urban development. The airport over a river bank, entire residential colonies over lakes, an IT hub over marshlands. But this stock-taking and course-correction must come after the water recedes. Today, Chennaiites are showing remarkable creativity and community spirit to survive. I wrote this story for The Economic Times on December 4, 2015.
On Monday, December 1, Bharani MB walked down from his terrace, stepped carefully into the muddy water in his ground floor house, balanced himself by holding the edges of submerged sofas, his parked motorbike and finally his front gate. In his neighbourhood of Virugambakkam, rainwater had risen to his chest.
He climbed on the gate and waved at a passing rescue boat on the road, ferrying five people already. Bharani had done this for three days, without avail, but today, the boat stopped. "Doctor-a?" the boatman shouted. Bharani was wearing a white headband with a bright red cross drawn with a felt pen. "Yes!" shouted Bharani in Tamil, relieved. "I have medicines in my backpack!" The boat made its way towards him. Since then, Bharani has been staying at a marriage hall, giving pro bono medical help to flood victims at nearby shelters. "A red cross is a code everyone understands," he said. "It was my only way to survive, and now I still wear it while volunteering."
Elsewhere in the city, Krishna Bharadwaj was stuck at work, and heard it was starting to flood near his house. He quickly logged on to youtube and downloaded a video showing how a car battery is removed. He sent the video to his mother who was at home, and the 59-year-old homemaker with no prior experience with automobiles, removed the car battery by watching it.
When techie Sivabalan saw the Adyar river overflow and water levels near Kotturpuram house rise, he filled gunny bags with sand from a construction site and guarded his compound for just long enough to save valuables like documents and appliances before the water gushed in. Some call it survival instinct, some profound resilience. Whatever the driving force, Chennaiites have shown phenomenal creativity in an overwhelming moment that was set to consume the city. They have done it before: during the tsunami in a December more than 10 years ago, fighting another kind of water rage through individual courage and community effort.
Today, as Chennai has received unprecedented rainfall, the young and old, techies and cops, drivers and engineers, have been showing that same old creativity under pressure. They are quick thinking, organised and miraculously generous. Groups of neighbours in an inundated Velachery were seen making home-made rafts to make food runs or rescue people. "It's just plastic oil drums lashed together with a construction plank and a clothesline," said Jayanth Vincent, a resident.
In Saidapet, Dandapani, an electrician, turned an old fridge into a float, using the space inside to distribute donated blankets and mosquito repellant around his slum. Driver Purushothaman went around Taramani, setting up a rope way so people could walk through deep water. Phones are crucial for rescue and communication, but there was no way to charge them. Power supply was cut off for over 48 hours in many areas to prevent accidents with live wires in water. College student Shilma Joseph waded through knee-deep water, boarded two buses from Mogappair to reach Central railway station to charge her phone.
Journalist Karthik Subramanian tweeted offering his solar powered WiFi. Sriram Krishna, a law student in a high-rise with solar power, swam in Perambur with 12 full power banks in a waterproof backpack, half-charging dead phones for people. A resident named him "Charger Sriram". As phone networks were too spotty or jammed for calls, most people used Whatsapp, Twitter and Facebook to share information, pictures and call for rescue.
Social media has been a life-saver, but as fake messages mounted - crocodiles on the loose, lakes breached and bridges collapsed - myth busters too were born. "Don't believe until you hear it from an official," tweeted musician Krish Ashok. Others tweeted contacts for the NDRF, Practo and @DoctorsForSeva had doctors on emergency, Sathyam Cinemas and Phoenix Mall declared their doors open to the stranded.
A website called ChennaiRains.org has Google forms to aggregate rescue requests that they then forward to Emergency 108 and NDRF. Another group started Floodmap Chennai, an interactive map that shows which of the more than 3,000 streets are flooded. Chennai Flood Virtual Communication room, set up by IAS officer Manivannan from the Tamil Nadu Water Board, works on behalf of senior civil servants to coordinate relief activity via Whatsapp and phone. BangaloreforChennai.com in Bangalore collects and delivers donated power banks to Chennai. They suggest buying banks online and delivering to their address in Bangalore, from where volunteers drive twice a day to Chennai for delivery.
On Monday, December 1, Bharani MB walked down from his terrace, stepped carefully into the muddy water in his ground floor house, balanced himself by holding the edges of submerged sofas, his parked motorbike and finally his front gate. In his neighbourhood of Virugambakkam, rainwater had risen to his chest.
He climbed on the gate and waved at a passing rescue boat on the road, ferrying five people already. Bharani had done this for three days, without avail, but today, the boat stopped. "Doctor-a?" the boatman shouted. Bharani was wearing a white headband with a bright red cross drawn with a felt pen. "Yes!" shouted Bharani in Tamil, relieved. "I have medicines in my backpack!" The boat made its way towards him. Since then, Bharani has been staying at a marriage hall, giving pro bono medical help to flood victims at nearby shelters. "A red cross is a code everyone understands," he said. "It was my only way to survive, and now I still wear it while volunteering."
Elsewhere in the city, Krishna Bharadwaj was stuck at work, and heard it was starting to flood near his house. He quickly logged on to youtube and downloaded a video showing how a car battery is removed. He sent the video to his mother who was at home, and the 59-year-old homemaker with no prior experience with automobiles, removed the car battery by watching it.
When techie Sivabalan saw the Adyar river overflow and water levels near Kotturpuram house rise, he filled gunny bags with sand from a construction site and guarded his compound for just long enough to save valuables like documents and appliances before the water gushed in. Some call it survival instinct, some profound resilience. Whatever the driving force, Chennaiites have shown phenomenal creativity in an overwhelming moment that was set to consume the city. They have done it before: during the tsunami in a December more than 10 years ago, fighting another kind of water rage through individual courage and community effort.
Today, as Chennai has received unprecedented rainfall, the young and old, techies and cops, drivers and engineers, have been showing that same old creativity under pressure. They are quick thinking, organised and miraculously generous. Groups of neighbours in an inundated Velachery were seen making home-made rafts to make food runs or rescue people. "It's just plastic oil drums lashed together with a construction plank and a clothesline," said Jayanth Vincent, a resident.
In Saidapet, Dandapani, an electrician, turned an old fridge into a float, using the space inside to distribute donated blankets and mosquito repellant around his slum. Driver Purushothaman went around Taramani, setting up a rope way so people could walk through deep water. Phones are crucial for rescue and communication, but there was no way to charge them. Power supply was cut off for over 48 hours in many areas to prevent accidents with live wires in water. College student Shilma Joseph waded through knee-deep water, boarded two buses from Mogappair to reach Central railway station to charge her phone.
Journalist Karthik Subramanian tweeted offering his solar powered WiFi. Sriram Krishna, a law student in a high-rise with solar power, swam in Perambur with 12 full power banks in a waterproof backpack, half-charging dead phones for people. A resident named him "Charger Sriram". As phone networks were too spotty or jammed for calls, most people used Whatsapp, Twitter and Facebook to share information, pictures and call for rescue.
Social media has been a life-saver, but as fake messages mounted - crocodiles on the loose, lakes breached and bridges collapsed - myth busters too were born. "Don't believe until you hear it from an official," tweeted musician Krish Ashok. Others tweeted contacts for the NDRF, Practo and @DoctorsForSeva had doctors on emergency, Sathyam Cinemas and Phoenix Mall declared their doors open to the stranded.
A website called ChennaiRains.org has Google forms to aggregate rescue requests that they then forward to Emergency 108 and NDRF. Another group started Floodmap Chennai, an interactive map that shows which of the more than 3,000 streets are flooded. Chennai Flood Virtual Communication room, set up by IAS officer Manivannan from the Tamil Nadu Water Board, works on behalf of senior civil servants to coordinate relief activity via Whatsapp and phone. BangaloreforChennai.com in Bangalore collects and delivers donated power banks to Chennai. They suggest buying banks online and delivering to their address in Bangalore, from where volunteers drive twice a day to Chennai for delivery.
Several Chennaiites
with relatively drier homes simply opened their doors to neighbours, policemen
worked overtime, women cooked all the meat in their freezers and distributed it
in shelters, citizen journalists uploaded video testimonies of marooned people to
alert officials, and animal-lovers offered to taxi dogs to a dry place in
Bangalore.
Through individual
courage and community effort, most of Chennai has been staying afloat. Videographer
Sathish Alex Paul said he was shooting a woman being helped through deep water.
“She saw my camera, waved, and said, ‘Thambi, make sure you get my pretty side,
ok?’” Perhaps that’s the most heroic of all: that even in neck-deep water, Chennai
retains its sense of humour.
