The V-R Family’s Love Affair With Extensive Flooding: Eight weeks after Hurricane Katrina and associated flooding drove me out of my home in New Orleans, my parents now enjoy a winter stay in Chennai, which flooded badly after a severe cyclonic storm hit the coastal South Indian city this past weekend.
[Cyclone is the generic term for an organized, tropical, low-pressure system with wind speeds higher than 40mph. What is referred to as a severe cyclonic storm in that part of the world is your average, friendly-neighborhood hurricane here.]
Some statistics from The Hindu —
Families marooned: Two lakhs (200,000)
No. of relief centres: 121
No. of residents in relief centres: Three lakhs (300,000)
No. of food packets distributed: 10.5 lakhs (1,050,000)
Just to give you an idea, the number of Chennai residents currently in shelters is approximately 75% of the New Orleans population prior to Hurricane Katrina.
The Rising Waters motif is getting old. 2005, officially the year of the Drowning Monkey, began with a phone call from my mother, in Chennai on her last winter vacation there:
Mom: “The sea water is rising on the high road and looks like it’s going to make it to our [four blocks from the Bay of Bengal] home. We don’t know what’s going on.”
Me: “2 + 2 … square root of … carry the 3 = !!! … Ohhhh! You just got hit by a tsunami from this morning’s earthquake in Aceh.”
Mom: “Is that what it is? [turns on TV] Yes, you are right, it is a tsunami. No one here even knows what that is. Imagine the number of beach-dwellers who just lost their lives or homes. I have to go now, there is a horde of people moving onto the sidewalks outside our house.”
Thankfully, the tsunami surge did not make it as far as my parents’ home and my aunt got only a few inches in her seaside apartment, but you remember the aftermath of the Southeast Asian quake and tsunami. Following that, Katrina, Rita, Wilma and Beta in the Gulf of Mexico. And now, most low-lying areas of Chennai are still underwater and residents are angry. Sound familiar?
Praise the pantheon yet again, beyond a lack of power for two whole days, my parents were not affected by the most recent influx of water either. Yet, the losing emotional battle with the flashing neon sign that reads Nature 5 Humans 0 is severely disheartening. While discussing this with a colleague earlier, I remarked, “It’s time for a change of pattern. Bring on the locusts and invading aliens already.” It seems I’m to be careful what I wish for.
Here are some pictures of traffic and city living during the flood, taken compiled by Chennai blogger, Jaggy. The images remind me of New Orleans during tropical storms, while others show buses and motorists plodding forth, cyclone-related flood or not. Life must go on.
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HAPPY HALLOWEEN! If you hadn’t noticed, the color palette of this blog has been gearing up for the second most beloved of Maitri’s Annual Events for a while. Now you know the madness behind the method.
Did I have a great weekend? Eating, shopping, and calaveras across the border in Mexico followed by Halloween, margaritas in Nuevo Progreso, all with W, one of the coolest girls from my graduate school days. For three days, I didn’t eat, sleep or think on New Orleans / Houston pathologies. Even quasi-homeless bloggers in limbo need breaks.
Hi Maitri,
Thanks a lot for linking the photo feature i have compiled… note it… “Compiled”…
Those were not taken by me… Just took those from various sites and posted…
Just added my comments to it…
Sorry!… if i have mislead u…
Jaggy
No worries, Jaggy, it’s been fixed. Thanks for the compilation. Hope Chennai recovers quickly!
whoa, whoa, whoa. what is this I read about border towns, margaritas, and south padres? I am so jealous!!!! I love the tip of Texas sooooo much. if you need to kick back, that’s definitely the place to be. I, however, spent the weekend in scenic Cape Girardeau, MO (yes- a “cape” in MO) for my undergrad homecoming (why the hell not? Its not like there’s tons of other exciting shit to do up here). I met up with several people i hadn’t seen in years, some of whom i was even happy to see! Amazing how people turn out after college.
That was great. OK. enough about my weekend- tell me more about TX!!
Jeeze Maitri, bad weather is certainly following you and your family around. I hope you guys get a rest from this already!
j
As a lot of people around here say, “Let 2005 just be over.”
AW, I’ve heard of Cape G … how could one not know of the town that spawned Rush Limbaugh?
A ‘town’ spawned him? Is that what they’re calling that-place-one-doesn’t-dare-speak-of nowadays? :D
Hope the ‘rents are doing better, and out of the bad weather now!
Ashu,
He Who Must Not Be Named arose from the levee mud of the Mississippi at Cape Girardeau … or he was dropped there from a spaceship of the most malevolent beings to wander this galaxy. “Confound those humans, you who shall be known as Rush!”
It’s funny that your parents came here for a northeastern winter, while my parents went to India from the northeast to get away from the weather. As a friend remarked, my ‘rents would probably have done better with blizzards and cold than the inability to get around low-lying parts of the city and, most importantly, no power.
Of course, when my brother informed me that they didn’t have power for TWO WHOLE DAYS, the smallest violin in Houston played a 2-second sonata for my parents’ neighborhood. Sheesh, try two months in NO!
So, did you perform your Narmada snaanam for Diwali?
Umm, huh – what Narmada Snanam?
Yesh – it IS ironic how much more effective disaster relief seems to be in Third World countries, isn’t it?
And my parents didn’t plan on arriving this late in the year – htey were delayed, and in a fit of extreme bravado, decided it would be a great time to try and experience snow WAY more often than they ever have, during past vacations!
I took a couple of pictures of the simple Pooja we ended up doing for Diwali … they’ll appear you-know-where one of these days. The sugar O.D. that ensued was excellent :) Hope you also enjoyed & observed the Festival of Lights!
Oh, it’s just that in my family, on Diwali day, the elders ask us, “Did you have your Ganga Snaanam?” It’s a way of saying Happy Diwali, I suppose.
I don’t eat sweets much any more and am in exile, living with R and his farm. So, not much Diwali stuff this year, except for the temple where I had masala dosa and medhu vadas. YuM!