Life after Hudhud In continuation to my previous post, I would like to share some of the major incidents that I have experienced in the past one week. When the cyclone calmed down, everyone believed that it was over. But it was not. Hudhud had deceived Vizagites. It returned again within an hour. No one had expected this. People were slowly coming out of their houses and seeing the devastation caused by Hudhud. Among all this, a group of boys were roaming around and they came near a kirana store opposite to our house. The kirana store had two refrigerators outside the shop that they could not place inside the shop due to lack of space. The winds of Hudhud were so strong that one of the refrigerators had fallen down and the glass of the refrigerator had broken. From my place, as we could see, it looked like the group of boys were lifting the refrigerator and placing it back. But what happened next was shocking. They were not trying to place the refrigerator back to its place but were breaking the glass even more so that they could steal the cold drink bottles!!! As the group of boys succeeded in their attempt, more people joined them and finally all the bottles were stolen. People from my apartment and the other apartments informed the owners of the kirana store. By the time they reached the shop, the boys were trying to break the other refrigerator!! It was strange to see this kind of behavior at a time of crisis. I have read in books, that in time of riots and calamities people attack each other and each other’s property. But for the first time I had seen this. It was shocking. Another incident that I want to share is related to our basic needs. Since the power supply snapped due to the strong winds, there was no way that the apartments could get water supply. One day, we could manage with the water that was stored. But the worry began from the next day. We were lucky that there is a hand pump near our apartment. But there was an enormously long line near the hand pump and we could not decide when to join the line. Moreover, there was a chawl near the hand pump and they were the ones who would use the hand pump on a regular basis. They disliked the presence of apartment people there which is understandable. Next they started the fountain of questions. You people don’t have a generator? What about the municipal water connection? Etc etc.. Well I would say, the hand pump was our new social networking site during that one week after Hudhud. It was the best place to get the most important updates. One could get all those updates that even Akashvani could not provide. Oh yes! Akashvani.. the only way to get news. After many days, had we taken out the radio and were tuning for Prasar Bharati. Life was different. Some of my friends term it as the Paleolithic life but I would say though tough there was a different kind of joy in it. :)

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