Watery thoughts

As the rain keeps pelting down in Madras from Cyclone Nivar, with bursts of hyper loud thunder and incredible flashes of lightning, looking at my waterlogged street and my semi-inundated yard with the ever looming threat of a power outage, I get a few distinct memories, all associated with water.

Four years ago was Cyclone Vardah. My then-high-schooler son had four after school classes each week which required him to go about 1.5 km away and return at around 9 pm each evening. Normally, he would bicycle. The topography of our roads and sidewalks is by no means even, though, and there had been a recent story of a lady who drowned in an uncovered manhole. So, at times of rain I would ask him to walk (if it was a drizzle) or put him in a cab. The only problem was if it rained heavily, the Olas and Ubers would not ply. There was one day when I had a 103F fever (dengue, it was) and was feeling utterly washed out. That day, son calls me after class asking how he was to return – try as I might, no cab answered the call, surge pricing or otherwise. I was not feeling too level headed myself so I asked our house help to hop in the car just in case and I drove down and got him – poor kid – knowing I was unwell, he had offered to walk back saying he could always shower later.

Just a year prior to Vardah, my son was due to write his SAT exam at a nearby school. The city was going through the now-famous, unprecedented floods (caused mostly by human error). I was wondering how I would ferry my son to the school and back. Yes, I had the car, and a robust diesel behemoth with a high wheel base at that, but news reports indicated hip to neck deep water. What if I got stuck, I wondered – I could not possibly expect anyone to bail me out in those conditions. I perused the website that announced SAT cancellations – Madras was not mentioned. I enquired with a good friend, a doctor, about the state of the roads near the exam centre – her husband, a celebrated medical practitioner himself, regularly went to the Greams Road Apollo Hospital which was very close to the examination centre. She told me her husband was quite certain no exam would take place. He himself was getting off his car several furlongs away from the hospital and wading in. I registered that and kept asking her for updates.

The afternoon prior to the exam, there was still no notification about cancellation. My friend called me and said that if my son was going to take that exam, I was NOT to drive him in – no ifs, buts or maybes. Her husband would pick him up and drop him off himself – no way he was having me negotiate that mess. I remember feeling so immensely touched. The trouble people took for fellow human beings! I definitely relaxed a little, all the while feeling guilty that I had to put someone else through difficulty for what I should have dealt with myself. That evening though, the website announced the exam being cancelled due to the flood situation. One can never be completely happy, though. On the one hand, I was relieved we could all be safe and sound under one roof and I did not have to put my friend’s husband through transporting my son. On the other, here was my son who had studied with this date as a goal and could not write the exam. Well, we proposed. God disposed.

Remembering all this, I am so glad that my daughter, five years younger than her brother, is able to take all her classes – school, after-school, what not – from the safety and comfort of our own home with my watchful eye on her.

In December of 2004, I lost my father extremely suddenly. No sooner had the 13^th day ceremonies concluded when the tsunami came in. I remember my sister-in-law saying let us take a drive out today. We have been cooped up for two weeks. So we hopped in the car. As we passed a road which had a view of the beach, we literally saw the water come in. My father-in-law had called me that morning wondering if we had felt the earthquake – we had not – I think the peculiar combination of severe grief with innumerable obligatory ceremonies and people galore had us all in a fog. Later, I realised what we saw in the car and the earthquake were related, particularly when I got a message from my then employer, AccuWeather, asking me if all was ok since I was in the tsunami-affected area.

I realise the importance of the rain here particularly, but given the many practicalities that parents have to negotiate, I forgive myself for feeling anxious every time water comes down – yesterday, for example, my daughter was taking a test online requiring her to be on zoom throughout – the power went off without warning. Fortunately, we handled it, but we did go through some nerve-wracking moments.

They say one of the greatest wonders is that a woman who delivers a baby still willingly gets pregnant again – this feels like that. I am sure when the sun comes up, the rain, and its pain, will become a distant memory. We need the rain to appreciate the sun. Just as we need the offline to appreciate the online too!