School days – Wading through knee deep water in Kolkata

It was raining cats and dogs and when I arrived at the bus stop with my brothers after school in 1957 or was it 1958! The time was around 3.30pm and I found rainwater everywhere. Buses had stopped plying as had the trams. In those days, there were no mobile phones and even landline phones were few and far between. There was practically no way to let my mother know that we were stranded.
As I was debating on the next course of action, there appeared the BC boys – BC or Balachandra boys were all from the same family. They were 8 or 9 brothers and sisters and, they asked us to come along with them to their house from where we could contact my father.
Well – with no other viable alternative, we brothers fell in step and walked through knee deep water evading the swirling leaves and pieces of cloth and what not. It was a fairly exhausting journey from Bowbazar Street passing through Medical College, Calcutta University, Presidency College, Harrison Road and College Street market to the famous temple of Goddess Kali at Thanthania. That was where the BC family lived.
Their mother immediately took over charge and forced us to change out wet clothes, gave us glasses of hot milk and snacks and with new energy, my brothers and I began the remaining journey – to Shambazar. By the time we had reached the tram depot, we saw a police van approaching with my father in it – he had come to know of our absence when he came home from office and contacted the police.
The time was nearly 6.30pm and we had been in the waters for nearly three hours. (to be continued..)
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