Tuesday, 26th July, began like most other Tuesdays in my life. Wake up by 6.30 a.m. get ready to get to Peddar Road – and teach. Tuesday I was focusing on the role of media in creating a “collective conciousness”.
Post the lectures (2 and a half hours), there was to be a meeting at Sahara One, at noon. Getting in from Sophia to Worli for the meeting, we crossed the BSP meeting in Mumbai, with heavy police bandobast.
The meeting got over at about 1.30. Shirish and Neena proceeded to Film City, where the crew was getting geared for Dial One aur Jeeto. Shishir and I went off for a bite to eat to Phoenix Mills. Keval, Jayant and brand new recruit Sriram (he joined on Monday) were at the office at Adarsh Nagar.
20 minutes later, after an unappetising – but quick – lunch at MacDonalds’ we moved towards Film City. This was around 2 p.m. The roads were fairly clear until Mahim. Bandra was a minor blip, but we cleared that fast and thought that we would make it Film City

By the time we had reached Khar, the matter was slightly worse. It was raining non stop.

By the time we reached the domestic airport, rain was hammering down upon us. Visibility was non existent.

And then, it seemed to clear slightly, until we reached the Jaicoach Signal, and the flyover that leads to Aarey and Film city. The flyover was jammed as far as the eye could see. The rain was lashing down by now. Visibility detiriorated from non existent to worse than non existent.

People had begun walking across the flyover, trying to get back into the city. Winds were heavy, the rain tireless, yet people persisted. It was almost like this homing instict which makes people take risks to get home to kith and kin.

Santosh – the driver – took one look out and predicted that – yeah jam kal clear hoga. So Shishir and I decide to trudge to Film City. We left everything except the bare essentials in the car with Santosh and began walking. One side of the highway – leading into the city was submerged in waist deep water. Indica’s and Omnis were floating past as though it was Bihar. The other side was jammed with vehicles. The walk was nerve racking. Water currents were high. And we were afraid of electrocution – we later realised that the power supply had been cut off. We walked almost 4 kilometers – we got a lift some distance, and a rick from Dindoshi to Film City. To our surprise, almost 70% of the crew had turned up. The rest were stranded. Mandira was stuck in Bandra. her vehicle couldn’t move. Finally, The channel called off the show for the day.

Getting back was even more nerve racking. Rain was pouring down. The roads were even more jammed, and there was no light. But, hundreds of people were trudging back. Most in extremely good humour. The support system from unknown people in Mumbai was quite amazing. This is the incredible spirit of the city that cannot be broken by bombs, flood or ineptitude.

We finally stumbled back to Shishir’s place at Goregaon. I left early next morning to trudge back to Andheri. The world looked freshly washed. And except for all the abandoned vehicles, you would never have guessed the previous evening was so bad. I later learnt that we had survived 1 meter of rainfall in a given day!

The crew and all friends were accounted for. Most had a hellish 72 hours, but all seem to be in good cheer. Others weren’t so lucky.

Yesterday, we were the only production house shooting in Mumbai. MSEB power supply was not yet up and running, so there was no air conditioning on the floor – we have close to 100 kW of lights and without AC the place feels like a foundry.We had generators for the lights and equipment. 90% of the crew turned up. Mandira – driven by her husband Raj – braved the traffic to get from Bandra to Film City. It took her over 4 hours. And the show went on.