Chennai in the rains

When I came to Chennai around three and a half years back, I was not very fond of this place. The weather was too hot to handle, the autodrivers were daylight robbers and the roads were almost always congested. But over the time, I have made peace with most of the irritating aspects of Chennai. I came to understand that life in Chennai makes you appreciate the little things about life outside Chennai that you used to take for granted. Like the weather in Kerala or the disciplined auto drivers in Bangalore.

One thing though that I cannot come to terms with is Chennai during the rains. I am a big admirer of rains. During monsoons when I used to be in Kerala, I would sit in the verandah just watching it rain. The pitter patter of the raindrops was music to my ears and the cold rainy breeze would freshen me up from the inside out. Then I came to Chennai and encountered the Chennai rains. This city has a very low water threshold. All it takes is a brief drizzle and the roadsides are already flooded. If that drizzle turns into a downpour, rest assured that you will have to wade through knee deep water. Knowing the condition of the city's drains, and wading through the knee deep water is a self inflicted torture that you cannot do without.

I have a friend who loves rain but hates walking in the rain. The main reason for that is the feeling of mud beneath her feet in her footwear. I can definitely understand what she feels. For me it is the feeling of the squishy shoes that I hate. In that context, I love my new Merrel shoes. I got this for trekking purposes. It is made up of webbed material. The water drains right out once you are out of the puddle. No more squishy shoes.

Last year, Chennai witnessed one of the heaviest monsoons for quite some time. This was the same time when terrorists hit Mumbai. If man made terror was flooding Mumbai, Natural terror was flooding Chennai. It had been raining for 4 days non stop and I had decided to work from home as you had to either know swimming or own a boat to reach office. And I had neither. On the 5th evening of this non stop downpour, I was watching a movie with my feet propped up on the table when my phone rang. It was the next door neighbour. He asked me where I was. When I told him I was at home itself, he asked me how come I didn't know that water had entered my house. I stood up in shock to see my house flooded with ankle deep water. In the next 15 min, I stowed off my bedding and important documents out of reach of the water and I put my PC's CPU on top of my couch. I packed some essential items and left the flooded house to seek abode at a friend's house.

The next day I came back to check out the situation at my house. I was dumbstruck to see that the water in my sitting room was up to my knees and the CPU which I had put on my couch was waterlogged. There was nothing much I could do so I just locked up and left.

It took another 3 days before the situation returned to near normalcy. So now each time it rains more heavily than usual, I start preparing for the worst and keep watching my door sil to see if water has started flowing in.

Tail Piece: A week after this disaster, a team of sales folks from HCL landed in Chennai as part of a training program. One of their requests was that they wanted to go to the beach to see the Sea. I had to bite my tongue real hard to keep myself from replying "The Sea had come to meet you. You are about a week late"