what a day!

Yeah...what a day!

I witnessed history. It hasn't rained like Thursday in almost forty years (the last case was recorded in 1949) in Chennai!
Talk about answered prayers...a little foully perhaps, but granted anyway.
The temperature was really low; it was the coldest I remember having felt here...was in my jacket, socks and blanket. Jenny couldn't sleep in her room; even the bed sheets were wet with moisture.

The electricity was cut off for around ten hours, which was lucky...some people didn't have power for over three days, and still hasn't gotten it back. The worst hit was Perambur, as usual, Velachery, Kodambakkam, Nungambakkam, Kilpauk, Choolaimedu...but it was bad even here.
The water came up to the stairs leading to our room in the morning (8 am?). In the street, it came up to around knee-level, and the playfield in the back of the house was virtually a pool (we spent hours looking out the window at the kids who actually came for a swim; also, there was the additional delight of watching the Mums came and dragged them away by the ears:))

It was amusing. We were surviving on two 5cm-long candles, and got hearty giggles out of it. We contemplated of what would happen if it didn't stop raining, and went all the way to retracing Noah's footsteps. The hitch came when Jenny tried to make a papership and it turned out very poorly. We took our umbrellas, went out into the balcony and threw the ship down on to the 'pool'...it drowned instantly. So much for fate.

6 pm, out of sheer desperation for candles, we ventured out bravely on to the streets, with rolled out trousers and umbrellas. The street was practically deserted. And the wind was (I'm not trying to be poetic) howling. There was no street light, and there was stagnant water on the sides of the street. Sometimes it got blown by the wind, and you'd feel splashes of it on your face and legs...
I got reminded of Dementors; she perhaps something else...but it was before twenty steps that we reached a mutual agreement to go back.

It's during moments like these that the most crucial things fail you: emergency light, auto-rickshaws, umbrellas. Technology's not that great, after all.

The Cauvery River overflowed, Srirangam (Trichy) was almost submerged...some people had to be relocated, permanently for those who lost their houses.

And the Cooum too. Jenny and I went past the Cooum last Saturday and saw a guy boating on it. Granting him a credit on sanity, we looked for info, and found it. The cleaning work had just been started. And yesterday it flooded. People complained of its water entering houses and stagnated. It seems to be famous for all the wrong reasons...

I really want to see the Mylapore temple tank...if it's filled up too, it'll be like a a scene from years back...

We received 42 cm of rains in 40 hours! I witnessed history!

PS: And exams were cancelled. *squeals*