A lifetime experience

Six years earlier I was a small town resident, all who had her share of monsoon misery was getting wet on the road that too occasionally. Never had any other problem, because once after hitting home we knew we were warm and safe.

Things changed after shifting to kolkata, in 2005 I was in Khardaha, outer Calcutta. That year gave me first hint about kolkata’s rainy day blues. I was informed after a downpour of two days that the trainlines are submerged, all I did that took a leave for three days. Last year and this year showed me the hell people of some areas in Calcutta go through year after year. No, its not a single year story, when Calcutta has faced abnormal rainfall. Its their every year story, even when the monsoon is normal. They know that they will have to wake up in the middle of night to see that their rooms are filled up with water.

Let me share my own experience to give a little view about their suffering, we changed our accomodations in 2006, when we landed in that house, no body told us any thing about horrible water logging which is that area’s monsoon woe. The agent was only interested in his commission, and the landlady and her family were sweet talking devils, I am yet to see another family so cunning, so corrupted, yet so sweet talking. Hence they too did not bothered about giving us the least hint. One fine night I woke up at midnight for a glass of water and when I stepped in the passage I felt water touching my feet, I turned on the light to see atleast 4 inches of water. And my adjoining room where my brother sleeps was six inches under water. My room was spared because it’s a little higher.

Next year, water logging started with the very first spell. Every day when I went back from office I used to see the rooms filled up with water which I had to drain out with buckets, no cooperation from landlords, who simply pointed their finger at their invisible mother/mother in law, (who was at that time living in Khardaha with her sister, quite a coincidence but we never saw them before landing in their clutches).

Then when I used to wake up in the morning I used to get welcomed by the rooms which I have cleaned up the earlier night filled up with water. Lovely way of passing time after returning home working entire day, was not it? And that too after paying 3000 rupees per month as rent, which is quite high as per kolkata.

Added pleasure was my office area was also infamous for water logging. Now when I am in a proper house I look back at that time with a light heart, but at that time Phew!!!

In gist I used to come out of the office and walk kilometres to reach bus, in knee deep water, praying to God for my dear life. Then travel through a packed bus for almost two hours and again land in knee deep water wade another few hundred meters and voila!! A house under six inches water waiting for me.

This says how polite people are always abused. If it would have happened anywhere outside kolkata, it would have happened only once.. one year.