What the flood! Hope we will not face it again

By Falah Faisal

It felt like a normal Tuesday night. I was getting bored in my room so I decided to stick up posters I had just got for my new place. I was done sticking up three, but when it was time to put the fourth one I ran out of double side tape. I went down to my housemate’s room to check if he had any. When he didn’t, I said “Maybe there is some downstairs, let me have a look.” But as I came down the stairs there was no ground floor. “Aatish, come fast. The house is flooding,” I yelled.

Both my housemates - Aatish, just woken up from sleep, and Krishna, about to go to sleep - came rushing out. The hall, the kitchen, the utility area and the spare bathroom were flooded in knee deep water that had overflowed from the nearby sewage line by the Domlur bridge in Indiranagar. The mattress, pillows and table we had in the living room were floating.

As Krishna ignored the mess and went off to sleep, Aatish and I decided to do the only thing we could in this situation - Make Reels. “Because we can’t recreate this set even if we wanted to,” was my reasoning and hope that we never have to face this scene again. We put on some music to get in the mood and then shot a one-take house walkthrough set to the Intro music of hit soap, Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. A la Tulsi!

After jamming out to Trouble by Cage the Elephant and shooting so many comedy outtakes that we could make a short documentary, our curiosity got the better of us and we ventured out. But we weren’t ready for what was about to hit us. When we opened the door, more water started gushing in. It wasn’t just our house but the whole street that was flooded. There was some comfort in knowing that, that everyone else too was suffering our fate. But nobody was having quite as much fun doing it.

We made our way to 18th Main through four streets of knee deep water, filming the debris, Aatish said while trudging through the water, “This feels like the perfect representation of my state of mind.” A bag floated by which simply had the word ‘Imagine’ written on it. The subtle ironies of life. Total dystopia!

When we finally got out of the water, we realised that it was just our streets that were flooded because the low lying area along with the flyover walling it in, formed a basin. But we were so used to it by now that walking on felt weird. We walked to a friend’s place close by for a breather and some refreshments.

There was nothing to do but laugh about our situation. As we sat around making jokes, the others also recounted their experiences with the rain that day. Nishu said his bike just stalled when he hit knee deep water and he had to push it home. And Instagram showed that even posh areas like Lavelle Road were flooded.

We finally built up the courage to venture back home. Luckily as we walked back, the water had started to recede considerably. It was just to our ankles now and at places you could even see the road. Water had entered Aatish’s car and my bike which had been half submerged would be hard to start. But there was nothing we could do about it now. The main task at hand was cleaning the house.

With a combination of buckets, mops, brooms and a lot of teamwork, we managed to scoop all the water out of the kitchen and living room. Everything that was previously on the floor would have to be washed or thrown out. Who knew moving out from your parents place would come with all these challenges. We knew this was a story we’d die laughing retelling and were already planning our social media posts for the next day in our heads..

Just as we finished, it began to rain again. But things didn’t look like it would get that bad. So tired and worn out we finally went to sleep. The next morning the water had completely gone. But as expected the bike wouldn’t move. It started but all it was doing was shoot out water from the silencer. And with an ‘Orange Alert’ in the city and more heavy rain expected, we hope we won’t have to see a repeat of last night. We’ll have to guard ourselves against the long wet nights that are still to come.

(Falah Faisal is a reporter with News Trail. He lives in Indiranagar 18th Main. His insta handle is @gonozgram66)