Down Memory lane - A Cyclone (1977) & A flood (2015)

It was in the year 1977, was studying at Kavali, living in a hostel. Good old days we had only radio for entertainment and information. One of our seniors had a radio, through which we used to listen to songs, news etc.

Come November, the constant announcement about an impending cyclone started hitting the radio waves. We were getting rains starting from 17th November, on the 18th night we were all literally holding our hearts and gathered around the radio to listen to the updates, winds were furious and the rain was lashing. We couldn't sleep with windows banging, wind howling like a fox in the forest, dark, with power loss 16-17 year olds away from respective homes had to cling on to our seniors for solace and comfort.

We wake up on the 19th morning, rain and wind moved towards the Diviseema and around us we see nothing but debris all around. Hurricane wind did its job, removed many a roof, our college class rooms had many gaping holes in it, we take a walk to the town, we couldn't recognise the railway station, there was not a single roofing sheet, if any existed, they were in tatters.

Town was another sorry story. Debris of the previous night plundering found all around, telephone and power lines cut and lying on the streets, bunk shops dislocated from their places and thrown away at a distance, it was destruction all around us. With no power we struggled our way for the next few days.

Because of the cyclonic effect the entire railway signaling system got disrupted and railways were using some methods of releasing one train after another using walkie talkie / or their own communication system. During this process, for what ever reason there was an accident near Venkateswarapuram railway station which is about 10 kms from Kavali en route to Bitragunta. Two goods and one passenger train met with an accident and fortunately with the alertness of the guard of the passenger train a major mishap was averted by stopping an express train, which was to follow.

Trains started accumulating at Stations before Kavali and on the other side at Bitragunta. Railways hired RTC buses and started transporting passengers from these two stations by bus and making them reach their destinations. To help the passengers, our Jawahar Bharati College sent both NCC and NSS members to the Kavali railway station. Our job was to help people disembark from the trains they arrive and put them in the buses and similarly help passengers who got down at Bitragunta and arrive

at Kavali by bus to get into the train. I was part of the NSS (National Service Scheme) and with another friend Rambabu (he is no more) from my class we were rendering the service. I was just not used to carrying heavy stuff, but the passengers were coming with heavy metal trunks,which looked like they hold their entire house hold articles and these boxes had to be carried across the platforms on the foot over bridges. Some passengers, used to offer us money (which we politely refused) and some used to look at us suspiciously, when we come and tell them they have to get off the train and move into a bus. language was one hell of a problem, with our own limited knowledge of English and zero knowledge of Hindi or other Indian languages other than Telugu.

We were taken by our hostel warden to see the railway accident spot, which was few kilometers from the main highway road. We went and saw the coaches and wagons thrown off the track for restoration. While going was easy because we took a ride in one of the shuttle bus services engaged by the railways, there was no guarantee we will get one back,  once we reach the road, so we decided to trek it back to Kavali by foot along the railway track. Only saving grace there were no trains running at that point of time. The walk was made interesting by our hostel Warden Sri Ameeruddin sir, who kept regaling us with stories of various kinds and was continuously joking to ensure we never felt the fatigue of the distance.

Cutting back to 2015, When I went through the continuous rainfall starting from the 30th November, night till 2nd December, early hours and started looking at the city I live going under on he morning of 2nd, I was as shocked as I was in 1977. I see that my younger days enthusiasm among the current youth in rendering help to the flood affected people, they are simply not bothered about the pain or hardship, they are only interested in helping their people in distress. A feeling which we experienced, while serving those unknown passengers of the trains. 

Difference from that day to now, is technology and improvement in communications. People are able to connect much faster, seek help and get it too. When we hear of deluge of material and suggestions floating across as to what is needed and what is not needed floating across the social media, it makes the life easier to render a meaningful service. 

If a similar rail accident happens, now, they simply cancel the trains or divert the trains, simply because, even the passengers are not tolerant and there are always exploiters lurking around to make a fast buck, like the shops which wanted to en cash on the shortage of milk by charging over the MRP even for regular customers.

One good thing was those days politicians were more humane and now they are lot more greedier for their name and fame. But people remain to be as generous with either service or money. 

Pictures used in the blog are from the net, copyright of the pictures rest with the respective owners

Chennai floods - Lessons for future

Flood has come and gone, rain is still around, making people remember all is not over. Threatening

Trail of destruction

forecasts, make people wonder is the worst over?

However it looks like there are lot of lessons to be learned form this entire experience. What could have been prevented could not be since we as people never accept warnings in their true meaning. If we are warned about floods, we have to accept the flood is going to happen. 'I have seen it all attitude' is something which needs to get out of our mind. Am sure those who have experienced the aftermath will certainly vouch for it.

This Chennai flood of 2015 is going to be a lesson for the urban planners, if they want to learn something from it. Mushrooming growth of the cities without any urban planning and the human greed will combine to make a human tragedy inevitable.

Should buildings be allowed basement construction near river beds, this is something the urban planners need to ask themselves. Understand there is a chapter in the Chennai Metropolitan Region Development Authority's master plan for 2026 on disaster management, which apparently talks about there is no known danger for the city. Now that the myth has been busted, probably it is time for everyone to start thinking in this regard.

MIOT Hospital ICU

In the total magnitude of the devastation deaths in a hospital ICU sounded very insignificant, however the negligence that has caused this tragedy could have been avoided when the owners of the hospital had followed required safety guidelines, while constructing the hospital and keeping in mind the possibility of such occurrence. Did they explore the possibility of hiring Generator vans (typically used during film shootings and at IT offices), were they not available, was the fuel a problem all these questions are best answered by those concerned.

Even today around the city both approved and un approved layouts keep mushrooming in agriculture lands and have narrow roads as wide as 15'-20'. We have seen when the flooding happened rescue could not even reach on boats as there were cars parked and boats could not maneuver between the parked cars, in the narrow streets. 

World over we have seen fire trucks being used in rescue during the floods, here we didnt see even

Use of Fire Trucks n Tractors during floods

one vehicle being used for that purpose. Many people caught in the roof tops could have been brought down with the help of fire truck ladders which today can reach high rise buildings, for example the fire truck could have been deployed from the Kotturpuram bridge and those living in the TNHB dwellings could have been rescued, wonder why that thought had not been exploited?

Tractors, excavators, Cranes are the machines that could have gone into the waters, excavator buckets could have helped to bring down people stranded in the first floors and tractor trailers could have been used to carry food, relief material into the water logged streets, more efficiently than the boats and since they are powered, can wade through water. Tractors holed up at the airport which was anyway not in use could have been deployed and even vehicles could have been summoned from nearby villages in Tiruvalluvar and Kanchipuram districts.

Fine, now the waters have receded and life is limping back to normal, it is time to rebuild for the future.

Rain water harvesting , Tamil Nadu is considered to be in the forefront in this area. PM Modi had even lauded the TN efforts in this area. Now, how to take it bigger. All the city roads should have RWH systems in their design, it serves two purposes, water drains faster into the soil and leaves none for the roads to get damaged, which is an annual money spinning area for the corporation contractors who lay the roads. Have some images and links for this purpose.

When ideas were invited in Australia, one kid had sent in an idea to deploy Banana boats for rescue, while our NDRF had the rafts that were deployed, it took some time for the same to reach and get deployed. Moreover the biggest issue with NDRF was communication as i understand, because very few in the force could speak the local language. Maybe an initiative should be taken to call for ideas to prevent flooding and if required to be used in rescue. Maybe it is time to consider whether fire department should be under NDRF, since fire is also a disaster.

Now that a flood has happened, our regulators will bring in one general rule that multi storied

buildings should have flood risk management in place, and that will be a new way to make money. It was indeed a great problem, with water entering into the basements of 100's of residential and commercial buildings. This has ensured damage to vehicles, Electrical system (which in our country is located interestingly in the basement of the buildings), generators, Lifts etc. This loss alone is likely to be running into hundreds of crores and huge claims on insurance companies. In addition to the loss in productivity. This problem was more pronounced in the ares where the rivers were passing through in the city.

CT Scan in water at Global Hospital

Many a hospital had been built in the places which are not located best, Global Hospital approach

Global Hospital access curtailed

gets flooded regularly, MIOT had the biggest tragedy during the floods, because it was allowed close to the Adayar river, the flooding blocked the access to the hospital

Still items like bread are in shortage, as manufacturing is hampered, newspapers were not published for few days because their presses could not be accessed. Most of the industrial units are going to find their production resumption an issue, with machinery damaged, electrical and electronic systems compromised, it is sometime for the normalcy to come back. There are bound to be stories of few families which are put to total loss which will result in instant poverty. Indeed it is laudable that the TNEB workers have done a super job in ensuring the restoration of normalcy

In spite of the deluge, drinking water is still a problem, since production units had their own problems, including absenteeism as workers are more worried about their fallen/destroyed homes. Many outlets could not replenish the stocks, because the issues of supply chain, where the distributors had either their stores/warehouses water logged or workers didn't come in.

Car companies had their own night mares, in addition to taking up huge repair jobs, they had to face

the problem of plenty with many of their own stock yards/ service centres getting deluded with new cars under water and cars left for repairs from the previous flood still in their backyard. Chennai being the hub for automobile manufacturing had faced a big impact with most of the units in water, and their ancillaries too having their own share of problems.

While the religious harmony taught us enough lessons of tolerance, it maybe a pre-requisite that in future any such structures like Temples Mosques, Churches, Gurudwaras etc are only allowed to be put up in elevated places to ensure a safe place during calamities.

The end is not near for the woes of the people, we will hear them till the new year or even after, but what needs to be remembered is, Are lessons learned from this tragedy by Govt of the day, by the people and everyone else concerned, is the critical question that is going to be answered in the action that is rolled out.


All pictures used are from the Internet, copyright of these pictures rest with the respective owners.

Tamasha - story telling gone awry

Tamasha is a movie, which has two very good actors as the lead players and a successful director of Jab we met, Love aaj kal, Rockstar & Highway holding the megaphone. Problem is with the story telling. When a director confuses his audience, the best of stories and movies do not deliver, we once again have a situation where the narrative was not suitably handled.

Maybe it is necessary to give an introduction to these kind of movies along with the tickets, so that the movie goer is following the narrative. When audience goes to the movie and start watching it, they wonder where they are and what is happening on the screen. Once this happens the concentration is more on the pop corn or the mobile phone and lo here goes the rating of the movie.

Tamasha is a very good story about human emotions and hidden personalities, screenplay is where things have gone wrong. Idea of presenting all stories are the same and situations are different and clubbing them together, gets the audience further confused and probably mad. Saw lots of girls coming to see their beau Ranbir, for them their hero acting a robo, would be a disappointment. When you start loosing your audience like this, after the first weekend, your theaters owners /distributors will be sad and crowds not just happening. Imtiaz Ali has bungled here and movie hit the depths.

Ranbir Kapoor played a good role with ease, his acting talent showed up well particularly in the

 scenes where his inner personality is struggling to come out and he trying to plug it in. His imitation of yester-year stars, was carried out well. How he handles the family situation by telling a story, went of well, problem was by then audience interest was lost.

Deepika Padukone, did an excellent job, her emotions captured well, when she knows her lover is struggling with in a real life role, where he simply does not fit in and had to tell him the same and get shouted back by him.

Rest of the star cast is more incidental, individual performances worth mentioning is Vivek Mushran, who acts as the boss of Ved Sahni the troubled executive.

Music and songs were very situational and sounded different, 'Heer to Badi sad ho' was catchy, Rest are passable. Music by AR Rahman, couldnt save the movie.

Though the movie has not done well commercially, the lead players deserve to be nominated  for their acting performance.

Story in short: There is a kid in Shimla, who is very keen on listening to a story teller who charges by the hour, his inspiration from these stories makes him a dreamer and is forced to study Engineering against is interest. He takes up a job as an executive in a Telecom company. During a holiday abroad, he meets the heroine, who wanted to see the place from her favorite comic and looses her baggage and money. They spend a week without wanting to know each others identity and part ways painfully. On returning to Kolkata the heroine becomes desolate and decides to search for the missing man at Delhi after saying bye to him 3 years back. What happens thereafter and how she makes him pursue his dreams is the story.

A movie which is worth giving 4.5 Stars for its story and acting ends up with 2.5 stars purely on bad story telling.

All pictures taken from the net, copyright of the same rests with the respective owners.

God's n Daemons of Chennai

Chennai floods is the buzz word every where, rains have taken a breather, threatening to come back through the weekend, meanwhile we have seen some phenomenal things happening in Chennai. Whether it is thanks to social media or communication modes that are available to us, we could see a new hope for the mankind emerging. 

 It is possible, this could be the situation in a disaster zone, but experiencing this at such close quarters, is indeed a heart warming experience. Chennai a city always starved for water, had the God's benevolence or someones curse, we have been blessed with a record rainfall. Such a record that no wants to even remember it for the record but for the trail of devastation it has left behind.

We can talk about the greed of humans, which ensured all river beds occupied or tanks converted to living areas, agricultural fields becoming residential colonies, with no one bothering to think of drainage or sanitation requirements of these settlements. Do we blame the people who greedily went and settled down out there or politicians/ bureaucrats who made money in the process by allowing all kind of wrongs to be committed or simply blame it on the profit motto of the business men. Should we bracket all these people Daemons, maybe yes.

Unprecedented rains, people who disregard, genuine warnings from a department which is always joked about (Meteorology) and already filled reservoirs, are we not awaiting a disaster to happen. It started happening from the night of the 30th November, Rain pouring without a breather for the next 36 hours, destroyed the hope of any further chance for relief. Warnings were sounded on the 1st afternoon, that the Chembarambakkam reservoir is full and sluice gates will be open. Telling the public, what you have seen is nothing what is in store for you is to be experienced.

Chennai International Airport

As human beings, we have this attitude, that nothing will happen or is it more for we Indians, i don't know, but people poor or rich never heeded the warning. It is also possible in that pouring rain no one wanted to venture out anywhere, hoping that the water will not reach them. Problem is no one understand the measures that are reeled out to us in terms of cusecs and TMC's (normal measure of water used by the irrigation department).

We are all typical television soap viewers or Internet lovers, we ignored what was about to happen. Some numbers for the benefit of the readers to understand the gravity of the situation

Chennai's drinking water needs estimated per day at 1200 million litres

1 TMC = 28000 Million litres (23 days drinking water requirements)

1 TMC = 11000 Cusecs/day

Water that was released from the Chembarambakkam reservoir on the 1st evening was 20000 cu secs approximately 2 TMC, that is 46 days drinking water requirement in one day, it didn't stop there, water was continued to be released the next day too.

By 2nd morning the Adayar river started
swelling and water started entering areas which were never thought to be flood prone. Airport was one of the first to be affected since the river flows in its backyard, water that was not flowing into the sea started flowing into the city (we have to remember we are just crossed the full moon day (25th Nov), which normally is associated with a high tide). Areas like Chormepet, Tambaram started receiving the reservoir water, cutting of the GST road access from the city. Not only this excess water started flowing down south reaching Katankalattur, Urapakkam etc, putting many colleges and other businesses in peril.

Usual rain damage had occurred in the low lying areas like Valecherry and OMR etc. Added to the misery the excess discharge from other lakes including Chembarambakkam, reached Cooum river (normally called the sewer line of the city) and started swelling its banks too. In a city where these two rivers trifurcate the topogrpahy both being swollen to the brim and overflowing, started flooding all the low lying areas. While rain stopped by 2nd December early hours, the water continued to come into the city from the Chembarambakkam lake and ensured the obstruction to the relief work.

Saidapet Bridge

With water logging in most parts of the city, power switch off was necessitated to ensure there is no power leakages. With this communication systems started collapsing. People who were struck in water logged areas, started loosing their batteries in their phones and the touch with the rest of the world. With trins stopped, buses unable to ply the traffic literally came to a standstill, even traffic was not allowed on certain bridges where the water was either flowing above the bridges or touching the bridges.

Confusion, chaos followed, 'Human Gods' started emerging from no where, the good Samaritans started opening their hearts first and rest started happening. A huge human bond emerged (national media, which was caught off guard, needed time to mobilise and the city was cut off from the rest of the world in terms of access), people offered their homes, businesses opened their premises for accommodation, organisations started quickly collecting relief material, every thing started falling in place. Help needed, people started reaching out, social media helped in sharing communication (of course the job less where busy creating rumours too). 

Communications started failing, with towers not having power, gen sets not operating due to lack of fuel, a new difficulty started setting in. By then the central govt rose to the occasion and deployed armed forces along with NDRF. The forces which are trained to carryout their task in a  disciplined way, started helping the people in distress, food was reached first slowly people were made to vacate their homes, in some cases 15 feet in water.

Air sorties were made, relief material air dropped, people picked up, medical camps both from the govt and private sector started helping people. Students were evacuated from hostels, film stars from their homes, Rich and famous from their villas, poor from their dwellings, no discrimination and with lots of discipline. 'Human Gods' were every where

Best thing happening was all the efforts were not politicised, civil servants working overtime, even the naysayers asked to shut up by others on social media. Blame later, involve first was the motto and the city started slowly coming out of the confusion, the damage assessment could be much later, with thousands of vehicles marooned, buildings loosing their valuables, offices having water entering their premises (damaging computers/furniture etc), warehouses inundated, loss of productivity, loss in terms of human and animal life, children loosing out on academics, this is all for later, no doubt there will be lot of flak and many people having to answer and surely few fall guys will emerge. But for now it is time to say i am safe to my near and dear.

Human Gods could be an aam admi or from the armed forces, Police, TNEB, COC my salutes to them for the selfless work that they carryout.

All pictures taken from the net, Copyright rests with the respective owners