In life one has all kinds of experiences…good…bad..thrilling..heartbreaking…so when I was doing my summer internship at LnT Infotech at Mumbai I had a life time experience..an experience which made me realize the agony of water and that how helpless human is when nature gets hostile….so here goes my experience…

Two days back it rained like anything. It broke the records of Cherapunji and recorded a rain fall of 938 mm. It was the heaviest rainfall I have ever seen in my life and it was the luckiest day that I reached home safely in spite of getting hurt thrice and in the same leg. It was 3 pm I was at office when everything went off electricity, AC Plant, computers and finally the transport. Everybody was peeping outside it was like 7:00 in evening. The rain was too too too too too heavy.

Since my IIT accommodation had finished so I was staying at my friends place in VASHI which is flat 28 km away. At 6:00 I decided to go out and catch the bus (I THOUGHT THAT...), but the moment I came out of the door I could not believe my eyes. Water was just close to our stair case (JUST 6 - 7stairs away) and bikes cars were all drowned and L n T's side wall was destroyed so the water had started moving into the Powai Lake. So the best decision was to stay back in the office.

But still there were some daredevils like me, who thought to go out and catch a bus (AS IF IT WAS WAITING FOR ME). Then I managed to get out of L n T main gate through the back door. When I reached main crossing I realized a group of about 100 people on the road waiting for bus and another crowd walking desperately. With no option left I too started walking and kept walking; it was 6:30 at that time. There is a place called AIROLI which is about 14 km from Powai and Vashi is another 14 from there. When I was walking through the road water was gushing and it seemed like a heavily flowing river. And I could see people flowing with it and being swept away. I saw a plenty of cars toppled and with ladies managing bare feet.

I was walking in knee deep water at almost every place. After I had crossed 14 km on foot to Airoli I was left with no energy to walk further, already dead. Till Airoli I had gone several times through knee deep water, and I could not realize that it was the main road on which I was walking...!!!!!!
Then at 9:30 I started walking again from AIROLI towards VASHI...about 2 km it was all ok heavy rains wind but no deep water but as I approached another place called Airoli crossover...it was waist deep water. Me and other people were walking with a stick in hand and while we were walking me along with other people wrongly stepped into a big dig hole which was deep enough to take at least 2 - 3 people inside. That was the first time I got hurt in my leg and water seeped into my mouth and nose. Other people caught hold of us and we were pulled out. Next we again walked in waist deep water for another 5 km and by that time my muscles and knees were aching very much. Many of them had stopped under some shade (on a hill). After walking for an hour and more I finally reached Vashi at 11:30 pm. But this was not the end; at about 2 am in morning the building in which I was staying was under threat. Because a near by dam broke down and water level had risen till windows around the first floor. People were asked not to open their doors and windows. Later quintals of grains mattress and TV sets were on the roads next morning, there was destruction all around.
Only after two days people were able to get back home after that terrific night. There were some paces like Kurla and Khar which were still not accessible and people who were there were not able to reach homes.
People say it was after 120 years it rained like this and some say it is after 15 yrs. But what ever it is the way I reached my home was just a life time experience. The destruction that I saw on my way home and later on was very depressing. Because I was hurt thrice in leg, it was bleeding; I did not have lunch I was feeling cold and pain in my stomach, cramp in the foot....The rain left the people helpless and at Vashi people are left with nothing but soaked houses......