Bracing for another tough week ahead, I slept early on Sunday night at around 10 pm. I woke up to the din of slamming doors and windows. I quickly grabbed my phone from the bedside table to check the time. It was around 1 am.
Strong winds were blowing, slamming the doors and windows of each and every apartment in my society in Navi Mumbai’s Ulwe. I quickly got up to shut the doors and windows of my apartment. With the scary sound of the raging winds, I couldn’t sleep the whole night.
After the sleepless night, I got up to a very dark Monday morning. Even at 10 am, it was so dark that things inside my apartment weren't visible. I was scared to step out for work. Since I work for a pharma company, I do have to go out.
Scrolling through my feed on Twitter, a tweet from BMC confirmed the arrival of Cyclone Tauktae.
During my journey from Ulwe to Juinagar in Navi Mumbai, I was able to witness the first extremely severe cyclonic storm of 2021, which has come at a time when the country is battling a resurgent second wave of COVID 19.
As it started to rain heavily at around 1 PM, the earlier information of shutting down of Mumbai’s airport from 11 am to 2 pm was further extended to 8 pm.
Later, when I travelled from Juinagar to Vashi, the scenes were equally dramatic.
The cyclone has now marched ahead from Mumbai and has made landfall in Gujarat. I pray for the safety of people in the state.
(Sajid Asfi is a Vice President of a pharma company. All ‘My Report' branded stories are submitted by citizen journalists to The Quint. Though The Quint inquires into the claims/allegations from all parties before publishing, the report and the views expressed above are the citizen journalist's own. The Quint neither endorses, nor is responsible for the same.)
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