Grounded in a gutter

It was the evening of May and as usual the cool breeze was zooming through the city of Bangalore .It was already pouring and the smell of the rain-mud, fiddling with the nostrils of all, was assuring a heavy shower this evening.

In half an hour or so it started raining continuously. And this was the time when 3 individuals had just done with their routine weekend schedule of hunting for a new house. But this hunt, they never knew, would led them through an experience of wading through the purest and the most non-adulterated form of waste, not to mention ,which included the human waste too. Unfortunately or fortunately, I was one of the three musketeers who would finally enjoy the voyage through a gutter and that too without a boat.

It was raining heavily when we were out . And we spotted a shopping mart, for a quick edible, on the opposite side of the street. The water was flowing on the streets but wasn’t even deep enough to wet the ankle of a person wearing low-ankle shoes.

We all enjoyed ice-cream and by the time we could finish, although it was matter of minutes, there was a good chunk of people gathered outside the shop. When we cleared our way through the crowd we noticed that the level of water on streets has increased by nearly ten folds. It was as if the siphons of a dam were opened and we were on the wrong side of the dam.

Everyone out on the street, rather I would say out in the water, was at least knee-deep in the most maladroit and dirty water available in Bangalore. We decided to wait for some time and let the water level come down. But as our minutes of wait changed from few to many we could not stop noticing that the level, rather then going down, was increasing.

And now the tallest amongst us, whom we call Lambu, declared that there is no other way but to wheedle our way out through this mess. Lambu was not more then 5 feet away in water and a person whom we assumed our savior came in asked us to follow him. At first go he was no less then saint of gutters who had come to rescue us from this calamity. So now the two of us, left there, had two choices either to follow lambu or to ask lambu to come back and follow the professional rescuer.

By the time I could decide the other companion of mine, Ajeeta was already following the footsteps of the saint. But to our dismay the professional led her to a place which was worse than what we assumed and was further deep into the gutter with all sorts of dirty materials making way into one’s legs. Ajeeta was already half way inside and looking at this I realized that the saint of gutters has sent her to gutters and affirmed myself to follow Lambu.

Hoping two of the stones which were big enough to land on them dry I was happy that I had chosen this path where I would be able to keep my leather shoes dry. But there was nothing to respite us further. We were facing the flowing gutter on the street and there was no other option but to wade through it. Although hesitant but left with no other option we jumped into the water. The flow was more powerful than we expected it to be and I knew that it was Lambu’s hold on my arms which was preventing me from flowing with the water. I thought that how it would sound that a software engineer drowned in a gutter. What could be a more inglorious end then this, one can have? And not to mention my leather shoes, much saved on until now, were totally soaked in water.

After crossing this gulf of dirty water, we reached some dry land but this was not the end of it, it was a kind of an island .It was an entrance to one of the buildings nearby. Although the basement and the outer lobby of building were also filled with water, the gate was standing dry keeping up the hopes for those who could reach it.

And once again we were stuck at the building gate but only thing different this time was that we could guess that there was no other way but to wade through the water and reach our destination. But however we decided to wait for some time again in the hope that the water level comes down and we reach the other end .

From this place we could clearly see many vehicles stuck in middle of the pool and more than that waiting outside for the pool to vanish. We could see lot of people into the pool drowned to their waist .This included fathers carrying their children on their shoulders and wives tightly clinched to their husbands. After some time getting no improvement in water level, we also decided to join the league.

We chose path as per our conscience which was shallower then others but all in all it was like brick in the same wall. Some time later we were also amongst the mob in water experiencing the waves initiated by the passing govt. buses. The experience was comparable to one from waves at the sea beach. And the scene of motorcyclists struggling with their bikes with its engines totally drained in water was comparable to one in which little boats experience a thrust because of the Titanic passing by.

Finally wading through this murky water with all sorts of sack-pieces and dirty clothes entangled around our legs we reached the divider. But divider was also not spared from the influence of this flood and was full of water although these poodles were shallow. There was a kind of traffic jam of passers on the divider which paralleled the traffic jam of vehicles on the street.

Finally after crossing the last hurdle of crossing the road having another round of bath in this river of smelling water we could reach the shores.

Although the experience was quite comical for us but it raised serious doubts on this so-called happening metropolitan’s management. But at that moment everybody’s mind was occupied with glimpses of the ablution we just had in this sacred water and were trying to accept the fact that we were grounded in a gutter.

Vaibhav -“If things are not going right, make them go left thrice…..”