Chapter 43 It rained, snowed, then hailed so hard… #2
“There! There!” Somebody in neon reflectors showed them their hands, directing their car to the only brick and mortar structure.
Samar revved the engine through the flood, with the headlights and foglight on high, and drove up the ramp and into the construction site.
The maddening noise of the rain quietened.
He parked the car among the only two others and Atharva got out.
“Atharva sir,” Vikram came running, reflector raincoat on, soaking all over. He carried a torch to light up the dark space even as the sun was supposed to be high up out at this point.
“There’s food and medicines in the car. Clothes and some baby things. Do you have people to take it?”
“There are people but we will have to trek uphill.”
“No pulleys? Cable cars?” Samar came striding, pulling the dickey open.
“We suspended everything,” he panted, men slowly running into the lot in raincoats and plastic bag kaftans.
“Is everyone evacuated?” Atharva asked the most important question.
“Everyone but one family of seven,” Vikram reported.
“They are stuck on their roof on their farm outside the village. We can see them from the highest point here but cannot reach them. Kacche raste have been swept away and the roads are closed. When I spoke last to a Captain on radio, he said an airlift is being arranged.”
“From the NDRF?”
“He said he was a Captain from Kashmir.”
Samar’s satellite phone rang. Atharva eyed him take it and talk. Listen more than talk.
“Adil has gotten the nod to send J&K Disaster Management Force,” Samar finally informed him, still talking into the phone.
“Is the family ok?” Atharva turned to Vikram. “Any way of communicating?”
“Nothing. They keep waving now and then, but the water level has risen and the sky is foggy. We can’t see much. Once the sun sets, even that will go out.”
“Did he dispatch the force?” Atharva asked Samar.
“The clearance is not coming…”
“From where?”
Samar gave him a look. The CMO.
“Why?”
“Paperwork. It’s cross-state. May take another hour to come through… haan, yes,” he went back to talking.
“Here’s what we will do,” Atharva gathered the men around Vikram. “A team of two will take the high ground with binoculars and a portable ham set,” he pointed at the oldest of the lot, who didn’t look like they could do much physically.
“Who can swim the best among you?”
A young man put his hand up, followed by another of around the same age. Followed by a third.
“One among you. Vikram, pick. Get a life vest and a rope system.” Atharva turned and shuffled in the bag of equipment he had carried.
It had been his backpack since his SFF days, updated every year.
From flashlights to alumina balls, mylar blankets to GoPro camera, binoculars to medicines and suturing set — it was a lifesaver.
He pulled out the GoPro and turned it on.
“Take this and swim away, but only as far as you can to make sure you can return safely,” he handed the camera with its band ready to fit around the man’s forehead.
“Tie a reflector band on your wrist and get as much visibility as you can. Wave at them, show a thumbs up. Keep your head above water, try to capture as much as you can. What’s your name? ”
“Jagga.”
“Jagga, the team on the high ground will keep their eyes on you. They will alert us if you need help.”
“Sir, even if we see they are all ok, we can’t do anything,” Vikram pointed, his tone practical.
“Do you know these people?”
“My buaji and her family.”
Atharva stared stunned for a second. Then quickly blinked out.
“The rest of you,” he mobilised. “All the packs here are tagged with essentials inside them. Carry them up to the high ground. Where is your village sheltering?”
“In our Jagdish Mandir at the peak.”
“Then take this all up. Do you have a team there to sort and distribute?”
“Yes, sir,” Vikram supplied. “I set them up and came down when I knew it was your time to arrive.”
“Good. Take this.” Atharva stepped aside and they emptied the car in a minute, backs laden. Atharva, Vikram and Samar covered the rucksacks and packs with plastic. With torches and sticks, the men set off into the deluge outside.
“Vikram,” Atharva stopped him from following his men. He turned.
“Not the time for it, but are you and that family at odds?”
“No. I was supposed to go to eat today to their hut.”
Atharva gave a nod. He reached into the lone pack left in the dickey and pulled out his windcheater. “Let’s go, Jagga. Are you ready?”
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Rain blinded his eyes, pelting even over the hood of his windcheater that he had pulled low.
He stood on the mid-high ground with Vikram and Samar, eyes on the shiny orange band that was dipping and rising out of the water as Jagga returned home.
There was nothing but water. As far as the eye could see.
“Could you spot them from here earlier?” Atharva inquired.
“At noon, we could. Now nothing is visible. The rain has also become harder,” Vikram relayed.
Atharva checked his watch. It was just past five. It looked like it was dusk. The reflector band came closer and closer and washed ashore on a ridge below them. Jagga sprang up and sprinted, the GoPro set on his head.
“Si…” he panted, reaching them. “Only six… couldn't see Dharmi Chacha…” he doubled over, holding his knees. Atharva and Samar caught him and helped him turn his head over, relieve any water from his system. Although, with the rain pelting like this, what was even the point?
“Let’s see,” Atharva unstrapped the GoPro and ran to the small makeshift shed they had set up. His laptop looked half-damp even when it was untouched by water. He quickly connected and loaded the files. Hit play.
He could feel movement behind him but his eyes were zeroed in on the footage. Water. Only water. Waves. And then something. He hit the spacebar and zoomed. The roof. Figures on it, hands raised. He counted. Six.
Atharva hit play and it resumed. Waves again. Water. The bedrock that was plain flatland. And then the sky. The roof again. He hit pause.
“There,” he pointed, zooming in. A figure was passed out among the six standing ones. Not sleeping. Passed out in the rain.
“That looks like Dharmi Fufa,” Vikram confirmed his suspicion.
“Does he have any co-morbidities?”
His face screwed in confusion.
“Like diabetes or BP?”
“Asthma!”
Atharva’s eyes met Samar’s. The wind was cold. The water was never-ending. Samar pulled his satellite phone and began to dial. No answer.
“Where the fuck is Adil?!”
“Listen,” Atharva caught his shoulder. “Let’s assume no help is coming at this point. Take your kit and get on a raft. I’ll inflate it. Take Jagga with you to navigate.”
“Good idea.”
“Vikram bhaiyaaa!!!” A teen boy came running downhill. “Vikram bhaiyyyya! Attack aayaa![49]”
“Kya attack? Kisne kiya?[50]”
“Shailendri ki Dadi ko attack aaya.[51]”
Atharva saw Samar panic.
“Samar,” Atharva commanded. “Go with them. I’ll take the boat.”
The panic remained. It had been years since Samar had been in the middle of a battle where so many needed him all at once. It had been the same for Atharva too but he had just left the CM’s chair. That had been his everyday — putting out fires in 18 and a half directions before lunch.
“Samar!” Atharva shot out. He stood straight. “Make me a kit for an asthmatic patient.”
“Yes, yes,” he immediately got to work, a splendid soldier when he had direction. “Here.”
Atharva accepted the kit, checked the pump, medicines, water and syringes. “Now take your kit and go up with Vikram…”
“Then who will keep a watch out for you?” Vikram demanded.
“Jagga.”
“But you will take him…”
“No, I will go alone. Jagga will keep watch from here. You go up with Samar. If this case is serious, then Samar might need you to mobilise men and systems to get her moving.”
“I’ll see you,” Samar was already lifting his bag and climbing up, back in his element.
Atharva grabbed a bag of apples and now soggy biscuits, a ham radio set, and stuffed it all into one rucksack.
Then covered it with plastic. When he glanced up, Vikram was still standing there, drenched, looking like a stick figure that would blow away with the next gust of wind.
“Go, move,” Atharva ordered, the voice coming from deep within his stomach. His Captain Kaul voice.
“Look out for Bhaiya,” Vikram warned Jagga. “Come to me immediately if anything goes wrong.” Then he reached for a neon band and fastened it around Atharva’s wrist before jumping up and behind Samar.
“Alright, Jagga, help me inflate this now.” Atharva held up the portable raft.
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Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink.
That’s how impossible the world looked as Atharva rowed the small raft across the village.
Nothing looked like the village. It was like being in the middle of the sea with night quickly falling.
He reached back and turned on the red light signal.
And kept rowing. The lashing flood waves swung his boat from side to side, the oar no match for them.
He still kept going. Breathe in, row in, breathe out, row out.
Repeat. His muscles weren’t as good as they once were, having deteriorated over the last few months of break.
He went on, pushing mind over matter and spirit over stamina.
He saw it before he felt it. A lurch of a massive wave. The boat toppled over and down he went. Atharva clawed, blind, holding onto the oar as he found his strokes to fight the wave. He broke the surface and gasped. His eyes cleared of the water and burned, nothing but sky and rain pelting in.