This month, I had decided to become adventurous. I will be the ✨cool✨ one in the family, the one that the elders judge, the cousins love and the kids admire.
But, a technicality: I wanted this after. in the future. NOT now. A technicality the Gods missed. And so did the rains.
My parents & I step out of the theatre after the latest Mission Impossible and realise it's been raining. Little did we realise that we were gonna have a Mission Impossible of our own soon (dun dun duunnnnnn).
It's 02:50am and it's obviously been rain heavily for hours because the roads are flooded. So, we decide to take an unconventional route home (because we knew all our usual roads would definitely be flooded).
We make a turn, and another and drive forward through the residential neighbourhood. And the water on the road rises. And rises. And keeps on rising until my mother says from the backseat that water is coming into the car. I see the water level is upto the glass window and the car jerks. And keeps on jerking until it comes to a stop at what I concluded was the deepest flooded part of the road.
At this point, a genius with a larger car (and thus with a higher exhaust pipe) decided to drive past us, creating such a huge ripple that now I also felt the water rush in through the closed door.
My father opens his door and tells my mother to take the wheel so that he and I can push the car. I open the door (not before securing my phone outside of water's reach) and am immediately soaked up till my thighs. My father and I go to the back of the car, and push with all might. Which is when...
Nothing happens. A feeling of insecurity starts to fill me as a realisation sets in that I am very weak, so weak that I cannot even help my father push a small car even an inch.
Then my father pipes up and tells my mother to let go of her instinct to hold the brake and I realise the brake lights were on.
Side note: proof that I am Gen-Z because at this time, I was actively considering retrieving my phone and recording the "experience" to show around to my friends and family.
Moving on...
We push the car out of the water and I, once again resolve that I do need to re-start exercising because my thighs are burning a bit. We stop and start to scoop the water out of the car as my father tries to start the engine.
At this time, I interact with the street dogs and realise that some stuff that belongs inside the car has also floated out when a dog cautiously stole a sealed pack of air freshener right in front of me.
I feel the need to point out, at this juncture, that my father is an amazing driver. Water flooding the roads is not a new development at our city. Hell, our house becomes nothing less than an island during the monsoons. My father has driven us through flooded roads many times over the years. This time (we realised later, as we were driving the last 3km home) the car is a small one and we'd forgotten to switch from automatic to manual (Reminder, it was after 3 in the morning and we just wanted to get home).
The engine starts (hooray, because obviously, but also our other options included 2 women either walking or pushing a car in the dead of night. Not exactly safe). We cautiously drive and somehow reach home.
Parked on a slope, my father and I start scooping water out of the car. We use the little dustbin that was in the car (it was empty) and when the scoopablity of the water ran out, we started soaking up the water with mops (my hands still hurt from the wringing). My mother is bringing us more mugs and cloths and telling us to wear the raincoat and standing with an umbrella beside us and we are telling her to go back inside because we are already soaked and she doesn't need to be. It's night (or morning) and it is still raining, mind you, and we are using my phone's poor little torch to light up the floor of the car. I realise the water is filled beneath the foam of the floor, and am transported back to a couple of weeks earlier when rainwater had flooded into the house and the wooden floorboards were floating even as you stood on them (but that's another story, for another time).
Eventually, (when my back had been hurting for a good 10 minutes) my mother storms in (or out is more accurate) and tells me that I have been in the rain long enough. She took over from me and I was ordered to go shower. I went inside that it was almost 4am. No wonder I'm tired (Yes, I am writing this immediately after this happened. It's 5:15am. Don't judge me).
PS.: In the shower, I realise that my silver anklets have now turned bronze/gold.
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