Last week went by pretty fast, in anticipation of the new year to bigin on Sunday. This weekend was special, it brings last year to an end and today the year 2006 has started. Many activities are planned for this year. Where there arent many big things to remember that occoured last year, well 26 July deluge in Mumbai is a date one wont forget and there are some work related things that were more than routine.

Coming to 26th July well I was damn lucky to face perhaps the least of all troubles on that day. We had got the message that an extraordinaly amount of rain had fallen that day, and came to know that Pune office has closed early. We could see the streets outside the office flooded in knee length water, and could guess that we may have to walk back home, thinking that we won't get a conveyance to home. But non of us had an idea as to how much flooding the rain had really caused. Only after walking for a couple of hundred meters did we realise that the flooding was pretty bad. There were 3 of my colleages with me.

On some streets the flow of water was strong so we had to hold hands while walking. It was also a sensible thing to do keeping in mind that streets could have open manholes which are nothing less than life threatening. On the way you could find a lot of people walking on the streats. If one remembers the live pictures of the scene in New york after 9/11, one can imagine what had really happened. In the end we managed to walk home in an hour or so. Then since electricity was out I had to walk up 16 floors in the building.

As in all tragedies lives were lost, but a lot of lives were saved an injuries avoided by people who came out to help those in touble.

We witnessed positive spirit by individuals but negative spirit by administration as ever. I hope the infrastrure of Mumbai improve but then one can only hope, it does not look likely.