Chennai Floods Washed Us Away to Erode
Had it not been for the Chennai flood, visiting Erode wouldn’t have featured in our consciousness.
Day 1: Dealing With the Flood (2nd Dec)
Raindrops pattered on my plastic raincoat as I pulled my bike out of the parking shed at 5:45 am. I had waited for several minutes hoping for the rain to stop, or subside, before deciding to go to work.
I had to report to duty in the wee hours, but the torrential rain lashed Chennai for almost a month now had made my commute increasingly tough. At work, people’s turnout was visibly lesser. Except me, only two other member in my team made it, apart from a couple of admin and maintenance staffs.
By 11 am, water levels on the street had reached hazardous level. “Let’s hire a cab and share the ride to our homes,” a colleague suggested. The plan failed because cabs were not operating at all; it was dangerous for vehicles to ply on the roads. I had to be with my family at any cost, so I steeled myself against the odds and rode my bike through the waterlogged roads.
Safe but all drenched in slush, I managed to reach home on my faithful bike. Shristee, my wife, wondered if we should leave the city for a safer refuge. The road conditions I had seen on my commute was scary, so I convinced her that staying put was a better option.
Downstairs, our neighbor lady Sathya — who shared pleasantries and food recipes with Shristee — was fear-stricken because her husband Sankar was marooned in his office in Guindy. She was four-month pregnant with a second kid, and was already parenting a one-year-old son who occasionally threw tantrums.
She confided that she planned to leave for her in-laws place in Erode until the deluge receded. A majority of people from outside Chennai had their “native” hometowns to escape to, but it wasn’t an option for immigrant families like us who hailed from faraway lands. Sathya offered to take us along with her, reminding us that it would be a challenge to look after Shivangi, our eight-month-old, if things got out of hand.
At dusk, the power went off in our neighborhood, pushing us further into the darkness of fear and uncertainty. Soon, our electric water filter ran out of drinking water supply.
There was plenty of water outside in the streets, but not enough water for us to drink.
It was the closest experience of being abandoned in the sea. Unlike us, our neighbors didn’t have a water filter but bought jars of drinking water. I hesitantly asked Sathya to lend some water for feeding Shivangi, and despite scrambling for resources herself, she readily gave half a jar of water to us.
“No problem, you can give it back when you get a new jar,” she said.
Contrary to our expectations, the next day only got worse. Even the water in our reservoir tank depleted as heavy rain continued to pummel the city, prolonging the electricity outage. I managed to fetch one more jar of water from a nearby grocery store and took out some cash from the ATM for emergency. There were people all over the streets, and not much vehicles. People seemed hurried, nervous, and everything seemed surreal.
“We are going somewhere out of Chennai at any cost, tomorrow!” Clearly worried, Shristee gave me an ultimatum when I reached home. Because things didn’t show signs of improvement, I quietly obliged. Sathya was growing wary too, so we invited her to spend that night in our upstairs apartment instead of stressing herself in her room which was on the ground floor.
Day 2: The Exit Plan
We woke up with a resolute plan to evacuate the city. We were unaware about the highway conditions because we had no access to TV, radio, or the internet. Meanwhile, Sathya was able to establish contact with her husband who was trying his best to come home at the earliest.
I readied the car outside our building while my wife fed our clueless kid and packed our bags. We charged our mobiles in the car and listened to live feeds from Chennai Live. We stayed in the car for the next two and half hours, and yet there was no sign of Sankar.
We had been telling Sathya not to worry, but things had started to play in my head too.
Sankar’s lanky figure miraculously appeared from the street corner at around half past ten. When he finally reached our building, I honked the car horn a few times to cheer his somewhat-teary reunion with his family. Within the next 20 minutes, we drove off for Erode — our refuge at the time of deluge.
The highways were surprisingly unaffected, although we occasionally came across stretches where either side of the road seemed like marshlands for many miles. On bridges, people stopped their vehicles to watch the strong river current and to buy fish locals sold on the roadside. The fishing business had spiked due to the rise in water level and the fish vendors had a windfall of sorts; it became their manna from heaven.
“One man’s misery is another man’s fortune.”
When we reached Salem, I came to know that I was wrong about Erode being under an hour away from there. Being the only driver, it upset me to drive for another two hours. Add that with the fact that I had left my wallet at work the previous day, I felt irritated with myself. If pulled over by police, I didn’t have my driving license or any other proof for it. We had to drive to Bangalore, where the traffic police are known for imposing rigorous fines for even the smallest traffic violations.
We finally reached the sleepy town of Erode known for its textile and dyeing industry at around 8:30 pm. Sankar’s parents welcomed us with open arms, treated us like royalty and fed us well for the night.
Day 3: Exploring Erode
The next morning, we woke up planning to leave Erode for Bangalore to a relative’s place where we would feel more comfortable. During breakfast, we thanked the host family for taking us in and stated our plans to leave. But our well-wishing neighbors would not have it. They insisted we stay for at least a couple of days until it was safe for us to travel back. We eventually agreed to hang around for that day, and the couple made plans to show us around the town.
At noon time, we took advantage of our kid’s nap time and I and Shristee sneaked out of the house for a stroll. To our delight, we were told that the Cauvery river was less than a kilometers away from the house we were staying in. We walked through the quiet streets of Pallipalayam and came across a handful of textile mills or dye shops on the way. A cemented trail with small houses on either sides veered from the main road and lead us to the riverbank.
A couple of launderers were splashing clothes on stones near the bank. On the other side of the bank, a temple stood half hidden behind the undergrowth next to the greenery of a beautiful coconut grove. An elderly woman sitting outside her house — probably intrigued by the sight of a stranger couple in an unsuspecting neighborhood — tried to start a conversation in Tamil, but couldn’t get far due to our language incompetency.
But she persisted, “Kerala?” I shook my head. “Telegu?” I nodded again. “No, Chennai,” my wife chimed in, leaving the woman more befuddled.
Late in the evening, we decided to go to Erode’s marketplace after paying homage to the deities. Melodious Kollywood songs from the car audio kept us company as we zipped through the winding country roads and crossed the Salem-Coimbatore highway. We arrived at the busy streets of Bhavani, some 13 kilometers from Sankar’s house.
Sangameshwor Temple was a little hard to locate given traffic diversions in the area, but it was a worthy drive for us to see the intricacies of the city. The temple sits on the bank of Cauvery River, and is named after the confluence of three rivers that join here, namely; the Cauvery, the Bhavani, and Agaya Gangai (Ganga of Sky, originally a waterfall in Namakkal, Tamil Nadu). After finishing the “darshan” of Lord Shiva in the main temple, we went to the riverbanks through a door to the temple’s east. I could clearly see two streams of river converging together, but not a third one as was narrated to me.
When I asked, Sankar explained, “The third river in the confluence flows underground and remains invisible.”
The temple premises was clean and there was a small park to the south of the temple, where we saw a group of devotees carrying out a religious procession. A few men in the group played traditional drums, while womenfolk and children carried earthen pots on their head and marched towards the river. Our kids were fascinated by the sight of colorfully dressed men and women taking holy dips in the water and the cacophony of religious chants. It was a spiritual experience for all of us to go around the temple premises kept a pristine state of cleanliness.
We wrapped up our pilgrimage and headed to Erode’s market that reminisced us of Chennai’s T. Nagar — crowded streets bustling with activities that had all the shopping needs you would ask for, especially textiles.
The ladies went about in their retail therapy, while I and Sankar carried our kids and tagged along the wives along the frenzied bazaar maze. For dinner, we went to the locally-famous Hotel Oxford and indulged in delicious South Indian food.
It was a fun evening, and Shristee was happy to have bought some souvenirs on the trip. Had it not been for the Chennai flood, visiting Erode wouldn’t have featured in our consciousness. We were thankful we came.
Off to Bangalore (5th Dec)
The following morning, after devouring idlis that Sathya and her mother-in-law served us hot off the pan, Sankar took me for a bike ride. He said that he had a surprise for me as we rode through picturesque country roads adorned with eucalyptus trees. I felt the unadulterated cool headwind brushing past us, and I took long, happy breaths to rejoice the moment. We finally reached a courtyard that looked like a dead end, which turned out to be the entrance to a river dam.
Apparently, the dam authority allowed people (on foot and two-wheelers) from villages across the river to use its narrow bridge, called the Barrage Road. On the side where the dam blocked the river, Cauvery was on full brim; sunlight kissed the sparkling river water gave a mesmerizing spectacle to the coconut trees dancing with the breeze at a distant shore. The other side of the dam was parched; plants grew out of crevices between huge rocks that dotted the water-deprived sight.
The two sides of the barrage reminded me of Chennai’s before and after the flood.
Sankar had indeed surprised me with this thoughtful excursion. After revelling in the countryside freshness, we returned to Sankar’s home.
At around 10, we packed our bags again, said our farewell to our hosts, and headed for Bangalore. The climate combined with the superb highway condition made our journey extremely enjoyable. We entered the city at around 5:30 pm, but reached our destination wading through Bangalore’s traffic only at about 7 pm.