A lost slipper in the Arabian Sea...

It was just like any other monsoon day in Mumbai- dark clouds hanging over the skies, a cool wind blowing across your face.

I got up at 8.00am in the morning, and started getting ready for college. Not a single droplet of water made its way till the surface, and I reached the station at 9.30am, in time for the 9.34 Virar fast. The train, fast as usual, was whizzing up the green town side, and nothing seemed out of the blue. Getting aboard, reaching Bandra, running to the bus stop, it was just like any, any other monsoon day; dark clouds hanging over the skies, a cool wind blowing across your face.

Little did I know that in the next six hours, I would find myself dragging across dark waters, cool waters, with raindrops splashing across myself?

College started. It was an especially boring lecture of mathematics. Trying hard not to doze off, I somehow made my way through it. Finally, the last minutes of the lecture, and lo!! lunch break. Somewhere near this time, the heavens started pouring down. But still, it just looked like any other monsoon day…

After break, we had an interesting lecture of microprocessors, with which the day was practically done for my fellow batchmates and me. With nothing else to do, I wandered off to the library with Chirag, who had to write an N.S.S notice for its members. Having done this, we went to the Ashram to teach the children. All this time, there was a steady downpour of rainfall. In the Ashram, children were enjoying themselves, with water logging in the ashram. All the small ones started playing in the water filled balconies of the ashram. It was a pleasant sight, with children happily playing and splashing water at each other. After some time, I returned back to teaching. Santosh (my XII std. Student) wanted me to take Chemistry, so I started with a rather heavy topic of thermodynamics. (zzzz…)

After about an hour of teaching, (throughout the hour, it was pouring continuously), I decided to make a move, as I realized that if the rains didn’t stop, things would get worse. Chirag was also thinking on same lines, because even he left his student right after I did. Having done this, and with some satisfaction in my mind, we left the Ashram premises and went to the college to get refreshed. In the college, the atmosphere was absolutely charged up. Students and teachers could be seen running everywhere, trying to call up their friends and residences, but to no avail. The effects had only started to show, with telecommunication lines disrupted. Samudra (a friend in T.E.IT) was kind enough to offer his cell phone to me. However, all my attempts to do so went futile. I asked Chiru, “lets’ go?” Came the reply, “yeah baby!!”. That’s the spirit.

And so we descended down the famous ‘slope’. The moment we reached down, we witnessed an unbelievable site. The monsoons seemed to be really in a fit of rage. The sea had literally come across the roads, and we couldn’t distinguish between the sea water and rain. Man, were we excited! We started wading in this super-Olympic sized pool, which was waist deep by now.

Somehow we made our way near the end of bandstand. Here’s where the fun started. The depth just increased more, it was now almost till our chest (and we are no liliputs). So, I handed my bag to chiru, strapped off my watch, and launched my self into the water- this was my only experience of swimming on a tar road! It was unthinkable in normal terms. I fancied my chances of saying “wazzzup” to Mr. Khan, while doing a backstroke. However, the current was actually strong, so I gave up my attempts to swim all the way back home too soon. Here’s where the funniest thing happened, which has inspired the name of this blog. We were walking no towards St. Andrew’s church, and water was gushing down against us, flowing into the sea. We were really struggling against this horizontal waterfall, when suddenly chiru started shouting ‘sheik’, sheik’, help!

I turned around, expecting the worst- chirag being dragged by a massive sweep of the element, but instead I saw him standing there, perfectly safe, except that he was searching out in to the sea- for what? The poor guy lost his slippers into the current that was flowing against us, and he was now trying to recover it. One brave dude, must be in his early twenties; shouted at the top of his voice (the water was ragging) that he would go and get it back. I could see the slipper rapidly making for the sea, like some long held prisoner, tired of life. The dude got a long pole and fished out his slipper just in the nick of time. After this small adventure, we made our way towards St. Andrew’s church. Luckily, we caught sight of a bus making its way through the flood, and made our jump for it.

Once in the bus, life seemed to be much secured, but some of the sites I saw have etched into the insides for a lifetime, I ain’t gonna lose them so easily. Rickshaws helplessly floating around, small cars being carried away in the flow, shops wrecked till the last bit, life coming to a screeching standstill. The once pleasant ambience of bandra, reminded one of perdition now. We could feel that this was an unusual downpour, looking at the degree of damage done. Even the bus floor wasn’t spared, the water had entered the bus. I remembered a scene from ‘twenty thousand leagues under the sea’. The only difference, here we would be two feet under dirty gutters of Mumbai. Twenty thousand times pathetic. A chill ran down my drenched spine. I shuddered at the thought of it (much to the disapproval of the gentleman sitting next to me). Luckily, it spared our lives. Slowly, we made our way till Worli, where the bus finally breathed its last. From hence, we went home walking nicely. It wasn’t as bad as we expected, on the contrary, we had a lively experience. This was our unforgettable experience of that day, the very 26^th July of 2005!!