7 months ago
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The aerial astatine Anna Street successful Thiruvanmiyur, not acold from the coast, is clammy. P. Periannaswami has retired for the night, the oppressive aerial forcing him to instrumentality 2 contradictory actions, but arsenic nether the circumstances. To fend disconnected the acold of a monsoon night, helium wraps himself successful a heavy woollen blanket. To woody with the dense humidity, helium has dispensed with his shirt.
His furniture is simply a humble plank, each extremity placed connected the fender of a tractor. If 1 peered into the vehicle, they would find essentials of survival. A vessel filled with h2o and the woollen broad among them. And a marker of time: a calendar. Periannaswami, a nonmigratory of Villupuram territory is surviving successful this “motorhome”. There is thing fancy astir it: his beingness successful the unsmooth is not being documented and televised. Periannaswami is among a faceless acceptable of people, drawn from the districts and placed connected inundation ticker successful Chennai, assisted successful their enactment by tractors fitted retired with suction pipes. Along with the tractors entrusted to them, they are connected standby mode astatine spots known to clasp h2o much connected the aboveground of the world than nether it.
It is October 16, 2025, and lone the erstwhile day, the beingness of Periannaswami and the tractor had made a difference. Usually, mean downpour of the benignant witnessed successful the greeting of October 15 would beryllium capable to crook a conception of Anna Street (near the gates of Kalakshetra Foundation’s trade centre) into a filled bath tub.
And helium is having the slumber of the industrious. And erstwhile woken up from it, helium is affable, giving a grin that is half-toothy and half-toothless, conscionable arsenic helium had when The Hindu Downtown had archetypal met him astatine the aforesaid spot with the aforesaid instrumentality astir a fortnight ago.
Ahead of the NE Monsoon, erstwhile important showers had been forecast, the Periannaswamis had been stationed astatine inundation-prone spots. With dense showers not being expected for immoderate time, immoderate of them returned to their districts. Not Periannaswami. “It is 18 days since I came to Chennai. Some took a interruption and went home, I did not. What would I bash backmost home?” For now, this motorhome connected Anna Street successful Thiruvanmiyur is location indeed.
A formal rehearsal
Anna Street connected the evening of October 15, 2025, erstwhile Chennai experienced the archetypal buss of NE Monsoon’s latest edition, the greeting turning retired to beryllium a bedewed rag for astir neighbourhoods. | Photo Credit: PRINCE FREDERICK
On October 15, 2025, Chennai experienced the archetypal buss of NE Monsoon’s latest edition. The greeting turned retired to beryllium a bedewed rag for astir neighbourhoods, with rains oscillating betwixt the airy and mean spectra. The persistence of the downpour ensured that tractors with suction pipes stationed astatine inundation-prone points kept humming, including the 1 connected Anna Street adjacent the gates of Kalashetra Foundation’s Craft Centre. In the blurred portion betwixt day and evening, the “desk” displayed signs of the aboriginal greeting task, the “papers” near uncleared. The suction tube was coiled, 1 extremity of it disappearing into an unfastened recharge well. For a agelong earlier and different down the tractor the roadworthy was caked with soggy mud that had the consistency and colour of choco-lava, suggesting question of water. There was nary motion of h2o lone motion of h2o having been cleared. One needs to hold and ticker however effectual this involution proves against dense rain, and aft the world gets saturated with predominant downpours.
