Mumbai Floods - July 2005

Mumbai Floods

I was living in Mumbai in July 2005. Unfortunately or fortunately on 26th July 2005 I was not there. But the day will always be there in my bad memories. I was unconscious and hospitalized at that time in Delhi and when two days later I regained my conscious and saw those footages, I was scared.

It was only after two weeks that I could return to Mumbai. My roommate shifted to another apartment by then and she was such a sweetheart that she also moved my stuff along with her. Our previous house was at ground floor and got totally submerged in water. When I came and looked at my remaining stuff, I was terrified. All the bags were covered with mud.

I lost a great deal of stuff in that calamity, including:
1) Books
2) Clothes
3) Money
4) All my stories and poems
5) Stationery
6) Lots of gifts and mementos

Of course the biggest loss was my stories and poems for which I had no backup. And I learnt a great deal of lessons out of it.
1) I stopped being a collector. Now I only buy the things that I need today. I don’t want to buy anything for future.
2) I learnt that enjoy the things that you love today. Don’t store them for future.
3) I learnt, hard way, how important it is to protect the possessions that you love. In my case, now I always backup all the work that I write.
4) I also learnt that you can actually dispense lots of things that you previously thought to be indispensable from your life.

Fortunately, my loss was more of materialistic nature and other then my stories, there was nothing that I lost and still feel sorry about. But, I learnt that a calamity can strike anyone and can hurt me or some close member. So, whenever I plan my finances, I never forget to include appropriate amount of insurance.

My two words of advice here: don’t wait to experience everything on your own. Its good sometime to learn from others experiences as well. Learn from my bad experience and always have appropriate insurance.