Chennai nai nai nai nai…..
During the first week of December
2015, I had been to Chennai for an official assignment. As most of you know,
during this time, the city was completely flooded with rain water, with
continuous rainfall over the entire week. Here’s a blog having my experience on
how I and my colleagues were stuck up there and how we managed to come out of
the flooded Chennai.
I, along with my colleague and my
manager, went to Chennai on Monday, the 30th of November by flight.
Coincidently, this was my first travel by flight and was a bit excited too. We
reached the Bengaluru International Airport and our flight took off. We reached
Chennai Airport by 8:30PM and it had already started raining at that time. Before
we left from namma Bengaluru, the HRs from our company were doubtful for
sending us to this place, due to the unforeseen weather forecasts and cyclones that
was affecting the city of Chennai from quite some time, but still managed to
book tickets and make us travel there.
On reaching the Chennai airport,
another HR from Hyderabad was supposed to join us. She had reached much before
us and was waiting for us at the Baggage belt of the Airport. All 4 of us got
into a cab, which we managed to find with great difficulty even though there
were prepaid taxi counters at the Airport. After waiting for more than 40
minutes, our cab arrived and we reached our hotel by 10:40PM. There was huge
traffic piled up on the way to hotel, which took so long to check-in to our
hotel. We had dinner at the same hotel – a somewhat good-to-hear food called
“Midnight Biriyani”. It was quite good and we headed back to our rooms. The
rooms were neat and clean and looked exactly like my hostel rooms of Infosys
Mysuru, my first company where I had done my training.
Tuesday morning, the 1st
of December, we had our breakfast and left for our official work. It was a
recruitment drive and we started to the University. All along the road, we
could see only rainfall and traffic jams. There was water everywhere and the
area near the college was getting filled with water. We wondered how the
students will arrive in such a bad weather condition. However, we were quite
glad that few students had taken pain and reached the campus on time. The cab
charged us a whopping 1000 rupees which was a huge amount for just 10kms !!
We completed our work and were about
to leave the university. Two students there helped us to get two auto-rickshaws,
since there were no cabs available due to the heavy rainfall which had already
pouring since morning. It was continuously raining non-stop since morning and
was only getting heavier. None of the mobile apps like Ola/Meru had cabs
available and hence, we had to take autos to reach back our hotel. The auto
guys rode very carefully since there was water all over the roads – atleast
more than 1.5 feet.
We got freshened up at the hotel and
were praying that there shouldn’t be any flight delays – we didn’t want to get
stuck up there in that weather condition. We also got confirmation from the
flight customer service that our flights are scheduled on time. Problems
started from the moment we checked-out from the hotel. Our flight was scheduled
at 9:30PM and we started from the hotel by 6PM. Unfortunately, there were no
cabs available again and the hotel guys also failed to get a cab for us to the
Airport. As per their suggestion, we decided to take the metro train and
proceeded to take the nearest metro station. None of us had umbrellas or
jackets to cover ourselves. We went to the metro station getting drenched all
over. The roads were already flooded with 2-feet water and our shoes got wet. After
a 10-minute walk, we purchased umbrellas from the nearby shop and headed to the
metro station to avoid further getting wet. My manager and I were “enjoying” a
different experience altogether. Somehow we all reached the Metro station and
reached the Alandur station. From there, there was no train and we had to take
a cab to the Airport. After struggling for almost half an hour, we got a cab
that again charged 1000 rupees for just 4 kms !!
On the way to the Airport, we
realized why the cabs were charging such a huge amount. There was around 4-feet
water all over the road. Many vehicles were struggling to go on the roads and
we could see many 2-wheelers and 4-wheelers that had broken down in the middle
of the roads. There were policemen standing all along the roads in the middle,
where huge potholes had got created. They were really helping hard for vehicles
and people to cross the roads safely. Almost 4-5 policemen were present in
every stretch of 100 meters. I really felt bad for them seeing them in such a
condition, that too when it was heavily raining and muddy water was flowing
around them in full flow. At last, we reached the Chennai Airport and
checked-in.
Fortunately or unfortunately, our
flight got delayed by an hour. We felt good that we could have our dinner,
since we were really hungry that time. By the time we finished our dinner, we
got a message that our flights had been delayed by another hour. The flight
that was scheduled for departure at 9:30PM was now to depart at 11:45PM. After
waiting for almost 2 hours, we got an announcement from the Airport authorities
that all flights for that day had got cancelled and we had to reschedule our
flight for the next day.
To be continued....
