We have never seen such a heavy raining......its still going on..... Our office located at Powai.... Yesterday we left the office around at 5 pm, there are no auto n bus on that time...so walked towards sakinaka...but situation was worst at sakinaka..... so we came back to office.....

Thanks to our company management, they kept office open....

I hope other collegues will be fine, who left the office yesterday. we are trying to contact them but due to network problem, we are really worried about them.

Today morning we went at sakinaka but due to traffic jam, we came to office and not have any plan to go home.

--Vishwas Kasurde

I am going to take my car and will make the attempt to reach to her office and get her back home.

God is with me and going to help me reach and bring her back.

God bless all of US !!!

--Subramanian

We went out to CST to try for trains. My husband was at VT station around 3.30 pm. The announcer announced that there is a 4 pm train to Kurla. Dishum after 5 minutes he said trains have stopped even going up to Kurla.

No other way, went to Suvidha to do some pet pooja for getting the required energy for the challenges the weather god is going to give us.

Still no trace of any respite, the rains was lashing more harder. I resigned to the fact there is no other better place than to be at your office.

When we reached our office, we found that there were 20 guys who had unsuccessfully ventured and were back at office.

The ordeal did not get over there. What about dinner. All the restaurants and hotels were running out of food stuff. Our office admin guy Mr Subash arranged food for us from colaba. God Bless him.

Today morning still no respite. Railways are giving no indiaction, when the locals will start running again.

An eventful day and night. and further struggle ahead. Children at home have started crying.

Hey bhagwan aasman ko band karde aur hume raasta de

-- Visalakshi

-- Sreenivas

We were left early from the office but made a wise decision to stay back at the office (which was a right decision). Some of our colleagues who had left the office at 4:30 pm had a tough time at VT and Churchgate station and had to come back to the office at 10:30 pm.

-- Rohini/Livia

I am working with LIC [Get Quote] in central office. I and many of my collegues, may be around 200 people, are stranded in the office since yesterday . I live in Powai, many of my colleagues live in Ville Parle and Borivili. No arrangement for reaching our home. In home also no power supply since last 20 hours or so. Do not know if we reach home by evening to day at least.

--Krishna Moorti

I'm a resident of Bombay currently in Denver, US. At around 4:00 am today (3:30 pm IST) i woke up. Could'nt sleep for some reason. I went online and found out about the rains in the city. After about an hour, the people that I was chatting with were telling me that its getting worse. I called up my father and my brother and with some difficulty I got through to
them. They were stuck in crazy traffic on the highway and at SV Road, where some spots had chest-deep water!

I was in constant touch with them about their whereabouts. What we realised during our conversations was that somehow my international calls were connecting to them easily but local calls could not. I called up my home and told them about the whereabouts of the rest of my family stuck in various parts of the city.For the next two hours I coordinated over the phone
with relatives of my friends who could not get in touch with their worried families! 

I still hear about so many people who are incommunicado. 

Despite being in the US, I felt every pulse of Bombay and was almost living through the traffic and confusion and chest-deeps waters.... wading through them over the phone!  

God Bless Bombay!

-- Abhishek S Gupta

I am currently in Los Angeles, California, but am a true blue Mumbaikar at heart. When I spoke to my parents last nite (around Tuesday noon India time) -- all seemed to be fine. I only got the customary "Its raining very heavily today" from my parents -- and I again took a deep breath, trying to console myself for missing the Mumbai monsoons for the second consecutive year. Little did I realize what was to follow.
 
As we sneaked into our offices this morning, stories began to pour in from all directions -- colleagues at work (a large bunch of us Indians out here) -- narrating updates about their near and dear ones from Mumbai. Multiple hits on rediff.com and that is when the real situation came to light. Immediately all of us were twiddling our thumbs, trying to call our families back home. Some got through. The not-so-lucky ones kept trying. And kept getting more and more anxious every passing minute. Soon everyone realized that most of the landlines and cellular networks were down - but no one gave up. Every time a number was dialed, a silent prayer went up in each ones heart -- let this call get through.
 
When I finally got through my residence number (@ Malad West, Marve Road), I was greeted by an unfamiliar voice at the other end. Cross-connection, I thought to myself. But then the other person identified himself and so did I - he was my neighbor on the first floor and my Tata Indicomm wireless handset was at his place. Where are my parents and sister I asked?? They are downstairs, trying to get out whatever stuff they can from your house (on the ground floor) ! WHAT !!! I couldn't believe my ears. He continued, there is about 3 feet water inside your house and they are removing whatever they can -- the TV, the sound system, your computer, valuable documents, etc. I was STUNNED. Can I speak to them, I was getting anxious every minute. Call up later after sometime, they should be here by then. Ok, I said. And I hung up. Very well knowing that I might not just get through again.
 
But the Gods were kind. After about 45 minutes of waiting nervously, I tried calling again. After 12 unsuccessful attempts, I
finally got through. And spoke to my parents and my sister. I was so damn relieved -- God bless the folks at Tata Indicomm ! My house was in a mess -- the sofa is floating, as dad put it, but thankfully all of them were fine and safe. There was no power and the battery of the phone was dwindling -- so I didn't take too much of their time. I couldn't have done much anyways.
 
I have stayed in that place for 12 years and NEVER has the water risen more a couple of feet, let alone seeping into my house. Tragic. Very tragic.
 
At my offshore office (near SEEPZ), people left offices but then returned back in there after unsuccessful attempts at getting to some destination. Last I heard, there were about 200 odd people stranded in my office -- and that the canteens had been opened for an all night service. Junta was having dinner and chilling out on the sheltered terrace, playing Antakshari ! Trust Mumbaikars to never give up on the joie-de-vivre of life !
 
Hope that the Rain Gods show some mercy and the water recedes and life returns back to normal ! Amen to that.
 
-- Sameer Lalwani

I work for a consulting firm based at Nariman Point.

Our team decided to leave early as we began to hear stories about heavy rains in the suburbs. So to beat the traffic we decided to leave 'early' at 4 pm. The confident swagger of being the 'early birds' slowly changed to confusion as we noticed a huge crowd already making its way down; the feeling slowly sunk in that we were not exactly early!!

This feeling changed to panic as we started to drive out, and the rain started pelting down in bucket-loads. Also, to add to our misery, the traffic came down to a crawl! We started to realise the gravity of the situation when we found out that for every passing hour we had covered only 500 metres! By the time it was 6.30 pm, we had crawled towards CST and within striking distance. We decided to take a detour via the dockyard road; this was our biggest mistake (on hindsight this may have saved us from total doom), after the first few minutes of feeling that we had made the right decision, we got caught in one of the slowest moving traffic on the planet! Nothing moved for over 45min!

That was it!! We just hopped off, realised that we were in Ballard Estate and ducked into a hotel. Decided to spend the evening and drown our sorrows in glasses of alcohol... three pegs and some mediocre chinese food later, we decided to confront mother nature again. No time for intricate details, we just beat a hasty retreat, and landed up right back where it all started... in Nariman Point... our office!!!! On the way, saw the commotion at CR2 and hopped off to purchase tickets for any available movie... it happened to be The Intepreter, starring Nicole Kidman [Images]... the idea was that the movie would start at 11.50 pm and give us something to do till 2.30am!!!

Now we are right back in our cosy office after the movie... and have decided to spend the night at the office... the work place has been converted into a quick workable bed and my bossed are already asleep... time right now is 3.30 am... I just couldn't resist writing this piece.... after seeing all what my Mumbaikar pals have gone through... no complaints mate.... three days down the line, we shall be laughing when we recount our experience of being stuck like a million others... but it will be an experience worth remembering!

CIAO!!!!

-- Pavan Karimbil

I'm a student staying close to Vihar lake near Powai. I, along with my friends, stay in the hostel inside the institute campus. This is the first time we saw such heavy rainfall in last one year in Mumbai and we were enjoying by roaming around in the open. We were not aware of what's happening  outside campus. Later our mobiles stopped working. Also, we came to know that some of our classmates who had gone to city are not able to come back to college. Slowly we came to know the gravity of situation. It was around 12 o'clock in midnight somebody informed that one bus is struck in road near by Moraji Nagar area due to water-logging.

Then some of my classmates and I came to Moraji Nagar to help the stranded bus and its passenger. but what we saw there is quite unimaginable. Hundreds of people are struck in various buses, cars,jeeps,trucks etc..and road is submerged in rain water, surrounded by darkness. Mobiles were not working. There was no chance of moving ahead for them till morning. It was really pathetic to see some passengers standing inside bus since last 10 hours without food and water.

We then swung into action without wasting time. We arranged stay for some needy people in our campus. We distibuted water bottles to the stranded passengers. We called other students and divided into various teams among ourselves.

Various teams are still working to provide water to the passengers in various phases.

These people are really in need of help. We were flooded with questions about what the situation is. Some people were even ready to go home by walk if water level in road is manageable. 

It was really the biggest tragedy I have seen in my life.

Still our friends are working in to help them out midst heavy rain and darkness.

-- Bimal K Pati