Water, water everywhere, no place to stand without getting wet. This in short what Ultadanga has looked like at least till this afternoon.
The watery deluge took the city by surprise last weekend, and the onslaught continued up to Monday last. It was respite yesterday, and today the Sun shone. But at Ultadanga, as in quite a few other places in the city, the misery hasn’t ebbed.
This morning when I alighted from a bus at a place where water was supposedly less than the vicinity, it already measured knee-deep. People in the know said the last couple of days had seen waist-deep water stretching from beyond Hudco crossing on EM Bypass right up to the Ultadanga bus terminus after the railway station.
The railway underpass must be the lowest point, and there people waded through almost waist-deep water.
Fortunately the mainline suburban train link was okay, and so was up to Barasat on the Bongaon line. Along the mainline on either side of the railway track the picture is pretty dismal. At some places had it not been for skeletons of would-be Durga Puja pandals, there was no way you’d imagine it to be anything else than a vast sheet of water.
Puja is hardly 3 weeks away, but the rains have dealt a body blow to many organizers. For the oldies the memories of 1978 and later that of 1986 came flooding the mind.
Debacles always frighten, and with fresh experience of what battering rain can do to the city in just 3 days, people are crossing their fingers as to what lay in store during the autumn carnival. Let’s hope the enjoyment prevails in its truest form.
Ultadanga, when dry
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