July 26th!

We in Mumbai are holding or breath, as the first rains of the season flodded almost all the areas those were affected in 2005 July, when we had the worst floods in near memory.We lost over a 100 in those waters.The Government and the BMC(Municipal Corporation) had assured us that all the drains have been cleared.Had claimed the floods of 2005 were not on account of lack of preparedness but because it rained 290 mm in one single day coupled with the high tides, which prevented the surging waters from draining into sea. For two years since, we have been putting up with never-ending road repairs, claiming they were for saving us from another repeat flood.
Yesterday we had 29 to 30 mm of rain fall and all the areas which were flooded in 2005 got inundated.There was no high tide either! Wonder what the BMC will claim now. We also lost 19 mumbites in the rains in one day, with four buildings having collapsed and one major land slide.

We are shuddering to think of our fate in case it rains even a bit more heavily and in case the tide also turns at the wrong time. The memories of the two dear colleagues who left the Office at 630 PM into the rains to reach their homes where their families were stranded, never to reach their homes but to surface in far away beaches after 3 to 4 days, as floating bodies are still ripe. The story of Viswanath who had telephoned his haggered wife at 1130pm to tell her he was just at the corner booth and would reach home in another 15 minutes, only to keep his word to reach home,but not in 15 minutes but in 5 days in the BMC Ambulance, picked up from far away beach after the rains, still sends the shivers down our spine. We have still not stopped thanking God for the grace He showed when I did the heroic deed( or was it foolish?) of wading through chin deep water at 12 i n the midnight after a 7 hour car ride from the office to about 1km from home(which normally takes 40 minutes)to reach home at 2am (1km in 2 hrs).His grace was seen when we went out to see the damages after the rains ebbed after 2 days when we found all the drain covers washed away on the sides of the road through which I had walked, the very same drains which we read, had sucked in 15 pedestrians that night.
Yet, one thing which gives us the comfort is the warmth that Mumbai effuses in the face of a calamity.The camaraderie shown by the denizens in the concrete mansions as well as in the largest slum in Asia, Dharavi,when the floods ravaged us in 2005 or when a series of blasts in the suburban trains killed over 275 people in 2006, is enough for us to believe in the resisliance of Mumbai to come back to normalcy in the shortest time.
Yet we are praying, the BMC is proved right, the tides dont coincide heavy rains, the drains hold, the lids stay in place
Cheers!!!!

GOD ONLY GIVES....

In the sands of time once in a way look back and you will see two pairs of feet imprinted. One will be yours and the other, yes, His.
But at times of difficulty turn back and look, you will find only one pair.
You will be convinced because He has deserted you for that moment.Dont you worry....
the foot prints you see is His and not yours...because i times of sorrow and difficulties He doesnt allow you to walk...He carries you in His arms.

And also remembr-when God takes somethoing away from your grasp, please note He is not punishing you but simply emptying your hand to receive something better!
Cheers

DO WE MATCH ?

The stadium was full,though mostly by the parents and other kith and kin of the contestants.But the cotests were genuine,severe and intense. Thr final item was a 100 meter race with 6 participants.The youngest of the lot was a 4ft tall, tiny little girl.The result would decide not only the individual athletic champion but also the team trophy.
The race started in full earnest. But half way through the little girl who had a chance to get both the trophies fell and hurt herself.She got up and immediately sat down in pain.May be she sprained a leg.She was weeping. The race was still on. But suddenly there was hush in the stadium.There was something wrong here. The competitors were not running to the tape.All the remaining 5 runners were running back to the start line.The converged near the crying girl. Without hesitation two of the taller ones lifted her up and started running back to the finish line.The remaining three deliberately were running slow so taht the trio could finish first.At the finish line, the injured girl was placed on the track and allowed to limp ahead first in the race.The stadium clapped because it had to.But the greatest celbration was from the contestants themsleves, including by the girl who missed the individual trophy because she helped her injured competitor to finish first.But the joy was writ on all faces.
A crazy story, you might think.But this was a true incident that happend just four months back in Hyderabad.The occaion was the sports meet of the mentally challenged children from all over south India. All the participants were mentally challenged kids. What were they trying to teach the rest of us? The rest of us who think even in daily routine we have to finish ahead of the other even i it is at the cost of hurting him. Do we match these kids? Are they the ones with mental diasbilities or are we the ones?

BELIEVING NON-BELIEVERS.

I dont have to proclaim that I am a firm believer in God,for, I guess all in the family know that.But what intrigues me is the reluctance of many around us to admit that they believ in that omnipotetnt power. Even a hard core communist like Panniyan Raveendran, the sitting MP from Trivandrum and belongong to the CPI, recently wrote about a near-terminal attack of small pox he had when he was small and how his mother defied all warnings and sat by him to sooth him and nurse him.He goes on to say "all doomsayers were proved wrong, when the 'power that guards nature' saved his life and shielded his mother from getting the disease."Guess some one had asked the communist MP who thsi power that guards nature was. If i were there i would have told him it is the same power that people like me call "God". His communist credentials might get tarnished if he utters that three letter word. Same is the case with many other so-called iconoclasts and non-believers who take refuge, at least, in the privacy of their homes, 'in the power that guards nature' in times of crisis.

What made me script this piece is a news item that caught my eyes today .

One is about a management trainee with Wipro, an class mate of Ashwin's( my son), who joined the company just a couple of weeks back, based on a campus selection. He had studied for his MBA in Mumbai. So metros were not new to him. Yet he got killed in a tragic road accident (run over by a bus while crossing the street in Bangalore),just 15 minutes afte he talked to his mom and sis in TVM and after he was told his father who was in the gulf was to come to TVM on leave in another weeks time.Seems he had also promised to go to TVM then. Imagine the fate of the poor father, who had to prepone his visit on the news of his sons' death.He rushed to Muscat by road to take the first flight. Imagine his fate, when all flights from Muscat got cancelled indeinitely and his road access to otehr places also got cut off due to a cyclone that hit Oman .It is like fate playing a double whammy of the poor father. Can the iconoclasts explain this as a pure concidence or the act of a power beyond us? I dont know.

AILING KERALA

I think it was less than 5 years since I proudly read about Kerala competing with Cuba in being the best Healthcare provider to the community, in a study by WHO. One can imgain my chargin in reading in the news papers a few days back about 25000 being already down with fever (Chikungunia) and the numbers increasing.I dont think I should be surprised at this fall from grace for a state where death of new borns in what was once arguably the best maternity hospital in the country (SAT), is a continuing saga.In his eagerness to conquer all the worldly possessions in the shortest span, is the Keralite forgetting the basics of personal social hygene and how to react to a medical system which thinks and acts to make money? Hope the government and its people stop thinking that being God's own country, God would save it from its fate.If heads have to roll, let them.But we need to recoup our lost position.But does any one care?