This has been Selvi akka's routine every November for the past six years. During monsoon, the torrential rains bring water into her house ruining all her belongings. He is left with no home, year after year.
Now, she knows the drill and safeguards her essentials and lives on the terrace till the water recedes. This is the story of many people living in low-lying areas in Chennai.
Despite multiple assurances of improving the city’s infrastructure to ensure that a tragedy like 2015 doesn’t occur again, the mismanagement of Chennai’s storm water drains has once again come to light with the recent deluge.
The Quint traveled across Chennai to map how people are coping with the effects and how the resilience of the people has helped the city recover.
"Paati, if we help you clear the water, will you let us play in it?," said Raju as he helped his 90-year-old grandmother clean their house. She smiled and obliged, while making a tiny broom for her grandchild.
"This is unfair. How can we live in such squalor when there is a posh neighbourhood just a few blocks away. We have seen our house go up in flames, get flooded, fill up with mosquitoes and insects during monsoon and no one has helped us. To each their own!" Lakshmi, from SM nagar, sighed.
"It has been ten minutes since this girl has come into our house and no one has offered her coffee? Let me go get her some cool drinks. Or ask her if she will have hot puris...," Thatha, from SM Nagar, said as he struggled to stand. For the past five days, his wife has been tending to him as he squatted on a water-soaked mat. His legs have sores but his heart still is warm to even strangers.
"I don't mind actually losing the TV and furniture in the house to the rains. But the worst was that we lost clothes and mats. I can bear the cold. I couldn't watch my two-year-old baby shivering in his wet shirt. I tried salvaging whatever I could and made dresses with a torn saree," Padmaja, 45, told The Quint.
Residing in a slum colony in Teynampet, she said that they are glad the sun is finally out so that they "can wear dry, clean clothes again."
Lakshmi and her sister have been living in a broken-down small house for the past 25 years in SM Nagar.
"In 2015, our entire house was submerged in the water. This time, for at least five days we couldn't see the floor or the house entrance because water was up to the waist. The sewage river flows right behind our house and all the water began seeping in through the cracks in the compound wall. We want to live in a house which doesn't stink. But we have got no other choice."
"I am alive because some strangers welcomed us into their hearts, wished for our wellbeing, prayed for the rains to stop and the water to recede and for us to be dry and happy. Love, kindness and smiles are what kept us alive while we sat on our cots with water up to the hips. We were not scared. We held our hands that were frail and sent gratitude to be alive. I can't speak on camera but could you sprinkle some love to the world for me?" asked a woman in the slum area, as I clicked this photograph.
Chennai may now be safe but the monsoon season is still here for another fortnight. Keep your pets warm, comfortable and dry during the rains.
Fire and rescue service personnel rescued at least 80 animals that were struggling in waterlogged areas over the past four days.
"What was heartwarming was that we didn't get many requests. The owners and even strangers braved chest-deep waters to rescue their animals and provided them warmth and shelter. Some people even made sure to give the street dogs food and warmth. This is what makes Chennai beautiful," said a firefighter at SM Nagar.
Three boys with cricket bats and balls walking around the streets of West Mambalam, which was one of the worst affected areas in the city, looking for a place to burst the leftover crackers from Deepavali.
T Nagar was the first ‘planned' town in Chennai. The new town was completed by draining out the Long Lake by 1925 and the area was then called West Mambalam. This area has literally turned into a lake of sorts due to the incessant rains.
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