Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Mumbai city is damp, but not its dwellers spirit

Isn't it what everyone is chanting. Tuesday's devastating rain may have stopped the people of this bustling city in their tracks, but it certainly did not damage their indomitable spirit. Strangers helped each other on the flooded streets and many stepped out into the deluge to offer sustenance to stranded motorists. The surprising fact was Mumbai's impatient pedestrians and motorists behaved as though they were trained by the military. The discipline was impressive and totally unseen before. Many people were stuck at every railway stations and many ST bus stands, many of them were women and girls too, but men around them choose to treat them with respect. Many tempo owners, who ferry vegetables from nearby rural areas, turned their vehicles into passenger transport systems and offered their services to marooned people free of cost. Packaged food was supplied by local communities at many inter-city railway stations that had become temporary shelters for thousands after train services were cancelled due to flooding of tracks. Strangers offered lifts to office goers Thursday as inter-city trains and bus services struggled to restore normal operations. As the water level started to rise inside the bus, young men rushed in to help marooned passengers. They smashed bus windows and, using ropes, helped the hapless passengers to get atop a stranded double-decker bus nearby. In many areas, local voluntary groups offered food and water to the people who had got trapped inside their vehicles on flooded streets. Here is a testimony:Anjali Krishnan says"Our fellow-travellers, boys and girls, men and women, young and old, chanted hymns, sang songs, cracked jokes.Some heartily sang "Just chill out, chill out" - a Bollywood ditty rocking the nation these days. Others cracked the night's best silly jokes - whenever they would come across a car floating in the middle of the road, they would shout: "No parking! No parking please! This is a traffic offence!" "Don't feel ashamed, madam. Hold my hand. Bindaas pakro (Hold me coolly)," said a young man in the queue lending a helping hand to a girl."

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