Where to begin...

The past few days have been extraordinary, exhausting, and completely bizarre. I don’t know where to begin, as all my impressions are still fresh in my mind and jumbled together, and I anticipate that trying to put them in words won’t do it justice. I have some pictures I will post as well from the end of the journey and the celebration in the hotel afterwards, but again, it’s just not the same. I’ve also taken digital pictures of the newspaper headlines and photos. I’ll just narrate this chronologically and hope that I can impart at least some of the craziness of it all.

Tuesday night, five of us out-of-towners stayed at the client site. The benefits of staying there were obvious – it was dry, cool (as opposed to outside where it was ridiculously muggy), and we had facilities. Around midnight, I found a semi-comfortable couch in the executive offices across the hall to sleep on (imagine a firm pleather Ikea couch). I had a difficult time falling asleep, and woke up about once an hour, but in the end I got about 6 hours of sleep in total, which was more than anyone else on my team. The couch I was on was next to a set of doors leading out to a veranda on the seventh floor. The door handles had been tied together with some sort of cable because they wouldn’t latch close and even still the wind and rain kept pushing them slightly open and shut all night long. The office was also too cold because of the AC, water was dripping into buckets around me, and the wind and rain outside were very loud. At one point around 2am, I felt the spare pillows at the foot of the couch being gently lifted off my feet as other stranded people tried to find pillows, chairs, and couches to sleep on for awhile. My manager set himself up in the chairs next to me, and later informed me that he kept waking up and eying my couch, wondering when the heck I would wake up and get up, but I never did.

Awakened at 7am, I reconvened with the team and we assessed the situation. Our other coworkers who had ventured out for beer the night before had already had their own adventure. The driver’s car broke down twice because of the water, so eventually they walked to an already overbooked Days Inn, where they drank for awhile, before taking a waterlogged shuttle bus ride to an available hotel where I understand that they mostly drank through the night. We couldn’t reach them via cell phone in the morning, so the five of us were on our own. We unanimously decided that if we didn’t try to leave now, we might be stuck at the client for yet another day with limited food, no showers, or clean clothes, and limited contact with the outside world. The rain had lightened, and we decided to make a break for it. Our driver, Balu, was able to make it to us by 8:30am, and off we went.

Balu did an amazing job maneuvering through Mumbai. He took back streets, went down the American side of the road (which is the wrong way here), and essentially went around the part of the city we usually drive through, in an attempt to approach from the other side. We were receiving updates via cell phone from my manager’s family members in Mumbai, and we had Good Morning Mumbai on the radio to keep us company and provide updates and warnings as well, such as “Don’t go anywhere, particularly via automobile.” Well, too late for that. After several reroutes, and u-turns, we mad it to a point in the Santacruz area about 5km from the hotel, just near the domestic airport. Here, traffic was at an absolute standstill, and appeared to be that way for miles ahead as well. After some deliberation, and radio accompaniment by George Michael (“before this river becomes an ocean….I gotta have faith a faith a faith. I gotta have faith a faith a faith ah!”) we decided to walk the rest of the way. This is what we noticed most people doing already, as cars were abandoned and people took their chances on foot.

With laptops in tow (thank god for my backpack briefcase), we started down the road, squeezing our way through parked cars on the jammed roadways. The rain was coming down relatively hard, and with only one umbrella between us, we were all soaked within a few minutes. We walked a few kilometers before reaching the point where we would normally turn off the main road and head towards our hotel on the left. The road we were on was raised above ground level, but the road we needed to get to was under 5 feet of water. Mind you, this is not fresh rain water. This is rain, mixed with sewage, mixed with God knows what else. We could see our hotel about a kilometer or so away, but couldn’t figure out how to get there. We decided to continue walking on the Western Highway overpass until it provided an opportunity to reach ground level again on the other side, about another mile away. To get on the overpass, we did have to wade through water up to just below the knee. It was sketchy, but we didn’t have to walk too far.

The entire overpass was packed with vehicles, and people walking, just like us. Some were barefoot, most had hardly anything with them, except perhaps an umbrella. And, this might go without saying, but there were absolutely no other white people, except for the two partners and myself. I got several looks, smiles, and “Welcome to India!” greetings. I just smiled back and said “I love it!”.

My manager and I were separated from the rest of our group at one point on the overpass when we went to the wall to look over the side. Still flooded. We turned around, and didn’t see our team. Cell phone reception was spotty, so we kept walking, finally meeting up with them near the cows on the other side of the overpass. Yes, there were about 4-5 cows just sitting there on the side of the road, like nothing unusual was going on. True, there usual are plenty of cows in the city, but I would have thought that at least the monsoon would have put them out of sorts.

Again, time to reassess. We had essentially passed our hotel, and the ground level road here was still flooded. Team morale was losing steam, but we had come so far, and weren’t ready to give up. We called the hotel and asked for other suggested routes. For each one they suggested, the partner wjo knew Mumbai best out of our group would respond “Yeah, that one is under water too”. We were on our own to figure out a way to get home, and then we noticed a group of people milling about near a stone wall, so we walked over to check it out. Apparently, if we climbed this 12 foot wall, jumped down on the other side, and walked through a mud flat, we’d reach a dry road that led to the hotel. Hm. Decision time. As we pondered our options, it started to absolutely pour, so we scurried for cover into some empty rickshaws nearby for a minute until the rain subsided. The group decided to make a go for the wall when we saw these old women in sarees doing it. I mean, if they can do it, barefoot no less, so can we!

There were two ways up the wall. A recently constructed ladder, or a spot where there was some ironwork to hold onto and climb our way up. We opted for the self-service rock climbing option. At the top, there was a queue of people waiting to be assisted down the other side. I was third up in our group, and noticed that to get down, we had to climb down this iron trellis type thing, and be sure not to land in the water below it. There were men at the top of the wall and on the other side assisting everyone over. It probably took about 3-4 people at different points to help me down into the mud. But it doesn’t stop there! Then we had to climb over and through more of the iron work. It was like an obstacle course was specifically designed to make this more difficult than it already was. I felt as close to being in basic training in the army than I’ll ever get again, at least I hope.

By the time we all landed on the other side and climbed through the trellis, we were ecstatic. I whipped out my camera and finally started taking pictures. Before now it just hadn’t been practical, and I also felt uncomfortable taking pictures of some of the destroyed shanty towns and other damage I had seen. We were all covered in mud, and the end was in sight. We tromped through the mud for about half a mile, not caring what was splashing up on our pants. A misplaced step resulted in my right foot dipping down into about 4 inches of sludgy mud. Gross. Next obstacle - another wall to get over! This time we just had to cross a wooden plank across some sort of canal, and then hop down the other side about 6 feet down. No problem!

Finally, we were on the dry road leading to the hotel. As with the rest of the day, we weren’t alone. There were several people walking along the road with us, but none of them were heading to the five star hotel like we were in our condition. Walking up to the hotel, we felt like we were coming out of a James Bond movie, completely covered in mud, rain, questionable water, and walking right in like we owned the place. The hotel staff didn’t hassle us at all, and even shooed us in while we were attempting to at least wipe our feet on the mat out front (we were probably just an eyesore, really : ).

Back in my room, I walked straight into the shower and took everything off, throwing things into two piles – keep and throw away. The trash pile consists of my pants, socks, and shoes. I don’t think those are safe anymore for human use. I scrubbed the day off my entire body, and felt so grateful to have such a nice hotel to come home to.

In Amazing Race style, it took my “team” 4.5 hours to make it from Navi Mumbai to the hotel in Santacruz. We think we “won” because the other groups who got back around the same time we did had left the night before, and had slept at either sketchy hotels or in cars. Even though we weren’t technically the first back, we had the least amount of travel time and discomfort. Other groups’ adventures included walking several more kilometers than we had, and some of them had to hold their laptop bags above their heads while wading through chest high water. Everyone made it back safely though, and we all independently found the same point in the same wall to climb over and walk through the same mud flat. We also all were able to salvage our laptops—a testament to our dedication!

After getting cleaned up in the afternoon, eating lunch, and taking naps, the entire group of 10 met at the hotel bar to celebrate our safe return. We called it our “We are alive” party. Champagne, delicious French red wine, food, and eventually tequila shots were flowing freely. I, in completely un-Christie like behavior, smoked a few cigarettes. I had never tried it before in my life, and I figured, if this monsoon didn’t kill me, neither will that! Everyone was so happy to see each other and in high spirits. We partied for nearly 8 hours, with the last hour amounting to a sing along of old school rock and other songs that our multicultural group all knew. Our side of the bar had cleared out, not surprisingly…

The State of Maharashtra declared Wednesday and Thursday public holidays to allow for the water to subside and the clean up to commence. As of Thursday evening, the TV cable, and the Internet still weren’t working, and the airports were still closed. I have to say though, the iron incident aside (I didn’t have time to post about it, but they actually took my iron away again and haven’t given it back to me yet!), I have been very impressed with the way this hotel has maintained their 5-star service throughout and despite this disaster. Apparently on Tuesday night, they had prepared for a 900 person banquet that was cancelled because of the monsoon. It turned out for the best though because they had 1,000 people stream into the hotel from nearby offices and buildings and they were able to provide them with a hot meal. Most of the hotel staff hasn’t left for the past 2 days, for two reasons – it’s not safe for them to venture out, and then the hotel would be understaffed (which seems nearly impossible once you see how many people work here. Every time you walk through the lobby there are at least 10 different people who greet you and are available to provide assistance).

Currently, there are 500 staff people who are keeping up the quality of service as if nothing were happening. Apparently, the hotel typically has 750 people onsite at any given time. The hotel has set up a Help Desk in the lobby to provide information and help people with logistics, and also on Tuesday and Wednesday night, they allowed people to sleep in the banquet rooms (because the rooms are booked). In speaking with some of the head chefs and bartenders last night and this morning, I learned that the hotel also experienced extensive water damage at the basement level (where there is a bar/restaurant, the gym, and some of the main kitchens), but other than the fact that these areas are closed off, there was no change in service. They didn’t receive any shipments from outside until midnight on Wednesday night, but they had enough food and alcohol to supply the overbooked hotel, the staff, and all the other people camping out in the lobby. One chef did tell me though that the other day they sent out a bunch of staff people to go to as many local markets as possible and get whatever they could that the hotel could use, food wise. It’s amazing what you don’t see behind the scenes when you are a guest here. The hotel also has generators, and a backup water supply, so even when the power was turned off in most of Mumbai, we’ve had lights, refrigeration, etc here. The staff’s spirits seem positive, and then general attitude of the guests are that we are all just happy to be here, in this hotel, and safe and dry.

On the flip side, it is painfully obvious how fortunate we are to have this quality of life in stark contrast to many of the people living here. Many people have lost their entire homes, which were mere shacks to begin with. And still thousands more trekked farther than we did, only to arrive at damaged properties without power or water. Thousands waited in train stations to get to outlying suburbs, and had no food for more than 24 hours. When trains in transit stopped on the tracks, many people jumped into the water and made it to nearby roads in order to walk the rest of the several kilometers home. So many vehicles are a complete loss, and we saw many of them bobbing in the water—automobiles, rickshaws, buses. One of my coworkers even saw a dead body in the water as well. This event will always be remembered as an adventure for me, but I’ll never forget that it’s a tragedy for many. I’m relieved that it has passed, and am waiting for life as normal to start back up again.

Thank you to everyone for your concern, voicemails, and emails. Check my photos in the next day or so for when I get time to post some pictures and some of the newspaper headlines. Today I am back at work, and Mumbai is attempting to get back to normal.