The rains are beautiful - but only from the inside of a high-rise
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The rains are beautiful - but only from the inside of a high-rise

A first-person account of an Indirapuram resident's tryst with rains (read waterlogging) in one of the swanky high-rises of upper-middle-class Indirapuram, and her struggle to reach office.

The rains are beautiful - but only from the inside of a high-rise

Shifting to one of the swanky high-rises in upper-middle-class Indirapuram about eight months back made my family realise settling down in a posh home is not easy.

Summers on my 13th floor airy flat went well — breezy evenings and refreshing mornings with a cup of soothing kehwa (Kashmiri green tea) on the sun-tinged balcony.

But today was different. It started early with the sound of the rain. The entire world outside my glass window looked beautiful — a cloudy sky, birds hiding in my balcony from the rains, green plants swaying to the rhythm of rains.

As I admired the scene, my mother jerked me back to the real world. It was 6.30 am: time to drop mom off to her workplace - a primary school in Delhi. She's a schoolteacher.

Both of us soon left our flat chatting about the beautiful morning, but it didn't take long for us to come face to face with the ugly side of the rains — waterlogging.

And we hadn’t even reached the road yet. We were just at the lower basement parking.

  

A sense of panic engulfed us. Now, our next mission was to reach the car without soiling our clothes and shoes. But there was no escape — soon, both of us started moving towards the car in the ankle-length water, looking like ducks.

The next thing that struck me — lifts! If water seeped into the lift pockets, it would be impossible for my mom to climb up 13 floors after she will be back from school. I immediately informed the resident body on our WhatsApp group and as usual emails got exchanged.  

After this bad start to the day, the roads greeted me with waterlogging, traffic snarls and malfunctioning red lights. The usual 45 minutes I take to drive to Noida from Ahinsa Khand II, Indirapuram, was replaced by two hours!

Throughout the day I remained glued to my WhatsApp to get some word that things had swung back into place at the apartment and that the waterlogging in the basement had been sorted out - or were at least being discussed. But I didn't get a single message. And it's now almost 12 hours since I notified them of the problem. 

Will the lift be working when I get back home or will the water have reached it by now? I have no clue. Is everyone just waiting for a time things get intolerable for taking any action? Will the mosquito larvae have already started breeding in the basement by the time I get back home? 

Alas! Rains are not always beautiful.