Dud Sea Scrawls The Writing, clearly, is not on the wall!

If it keeps on rainin’, levee’s goin’ to break,
When The Levee Breaks I’ll have no place to stay.

Cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
Now, cryin’ won’t help you, prayin’ won’t do you no good,
When the levee breaks, mama, you got to move.
- When the levee breaks, Led Zeppelin

The day began normally for me. I’d slept late, but woke up at 6:30 AM, because the construction workers had come to waterproof the roof of my sister’s new house. A slight early morning drizzle forced us to postpone the activity, already delayed by numerous breaks because of material and transportation strikes. A few minutes later with a steaming coffee in hand I started checking out the devastation caused by the sweetly-named-but-deadly Katrina. Indian govt. had extended a 5 million dollar aid to the world’s richest nation and Sri Lanka had offered twenty five thousand dollars. And Rice had made a statement that they had not rejected any offer of help so far. I don’t know why, but it made me smile.
I was busy the whole day supervising the flooring and other finishing work inside the house when I got a call from a friend who wanted some help with the play [ Sartré’s ‘The Respectful Prostitute’ ] he is directing for a competition. In the evening, I spent time with the actors as they read out their lines and explained to me their interpretation of the roles. After giving some tips about the context of the play and discussing the production design, my director friend and I left to have dinner. It’d started raining…
As we reached VV Puram and had managed to grab two bites, my friend got a call about an emergency, and we rushed off to National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences’ [ NIMHANS ] Casualty and Emergency Services section.
By that time, the gentle rain had become a pouring torrent of water. As we entered the campus the scenes that unfolded before our eyes were right out of the pages from a horror story.
We saw women and children, who had accompanied the many patients inside the hospital, but were turned out by the security guards from the door, sleeping under the awnings of the building, as there was no other place. The rainwater kept creeping up without effective draining, and the women and children huddled ever closer to each other to keep themselves warm and desperately wanting to keep themselves dry. As we walked inside the building to check the condition of the six year old kid who had been hit by a speeding LMV, more scenes of terror unfolded. Our first objective was to locate him in that chaos. When we managed to find him, he was lying on a bare bench, almost unconscious with his head wrapped up in bandage and his clothes blood spattered. This was the kid who had bubbled with enthusiasm when I’d met him at the orphanage last year during the gurupooja.
Six year old Sumanth’s mother had grown up at the orphanage and the first thing she did when she found out that her son had met with an accident was to call the orphanage and tell my friends who manage the place that she needed help. She was far away and the accident had happened when Sumanth had just reached his grandmother’s place. He was bracing to cross the road when a speeding LMV hit him. He should have been dead on the spot, but he survived with his skull opened up. When we reached him, he was waiting for a CT scan. Beside him were his inconsolable grandmother and uncle. Beneath that bench, on the bare floor was a very little girl who slept; blissfully unaware of what was happening around her.
The doctor said he could not say anything about the condition without seeing the CT Scan results and he was not too optimistic about that either as the boy was not responding too well. As we walked out to call up the orphanage and inform them of the status, we were feeling helpless about the conditions around us.
Outside, we were hit by a chill wind and the rain had become a deluge now. The women and children who were trying to sleep when we entered the campus were now standing in the cramped space as the flowing water made it impossible to even sit.
As we tried to make contact with the kid’s relatives and make ourselves heard above the roar of water and thunder, we saw ambulances, autos bringing more and more broken people.
Our reports given and having informed my dad that I might not get home that night, we tried to get back to the kid. This time, the guard said only one could go in. So I stayed back outside.

Hospitals are not new to me; I have spent a lot of time there whenever a friend or relative is hospitalized. I’ve been hospitalized too… in the emergency ward of Victoria Hospital to be treated for snakebite. I am usually called to be the attendant in hospitals because I maintain a cool head, strong stomach and quick presence of mind, all essential qualities to be an effective attendant. As I watched the ambulances and autos bring in the victims of accidents, I moved closer to the entrance to lend a hand to the overworked ward boys and nurses. We had just brought out one victim from the ambulance. The doctors and the nurses had been notified in advance about this patient I suppose and they came running out. They fixed an oxygen mouthpiece and started to monitor his pulse at the entrance of the hospital itself.
My friend walked out of the building with a slight smile. The CT scan did not show any bad damage to the head he said. He was happy to get out of the hospital as he was never comfortable looking at blood and gore stuff. He had managed to NOT see any patients, always keeping his eyes on the ground while walking inside the building. Now he looked at the new patient who was being treated because did not show any external damage; except for a couple of bruises and a little blood on his shirt he looked normal except for laboured breathing…
As we were watching the patient shook a little and then there was some blood inside the mouthpiece. He had died. The doctor covered his face with the blanket and called for the relatives and walked inside making a note of the time. It was 1:00 AM.
My friend was badly shaken by that, he could not speak for sometime. As we made our way back home in the heavy rain, I was thinking of the women and children still standing crowded under the awnings and wondered what tidings about their loved ones the dawn would bring them…
I thought about the levees that had broken somewhere else across the world and our government’s well-meant gesture of a few millions dollars aid. I thought about the tsunami, which wreaked havoc across countries. I thought about the levees that have broken at many places along the coastal line of Karnataka and Mumbai during the heavy rains and the resulting loss of lives. I thought of the helplessness one feels when they see their loved ones washed away into the dark unknown right in front of their eyes.

I thought a little money, well spent, here would have meant more doctors and nurses and a bigger waiting lounge, which kept the women, and children dry and warm while bleak, cold suffering and death surrounded them.

It’s been three days now. Sumanth still lies in the hospital, 18 stitches in his skull, broken ribs, hurt kidney and damaged liver and massive hemorrhages inside, uncertain about his survival. I hope he comes through.