Absolutely arcane to any minatory, I woke up to a bright and sunny day here in New Delhi. It was windy and bright at the same time. After running a couple of chores and performing a set of routine that I usually adhere to, I left for work.?
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By the time I reached the office, Mumbai was already submerged in knee-deep water, failing traffic, disrupting flights and breaking the everyday commute. Leaving aside a certain percentage, now everyone deemed as lucky who chose to stay at home since a majority of Mumbaikars were stuck in the most unlikely places.?
Unable to plumb the roots of this catastrophe, the city kept on moving, unknown by the fact that by noon, all of it will come to halt.?
Mumbaikars woke up to heavy rains on Tuesday, facing one of the heaviest rainfall of the year. That said, the ever joyous and ever lively Mumbai came to an uninvited standstill.
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And while we have already learnt that how city's fervour was kept intact by individuals and organizations who chipped in favours, let me tell you about a group of people who pulled an unexpected.
South Mumbai resident Mehul Ved began putting together a spreadsheet of those offering help at 1:45 pm and had over 2,000 entries by 8:25 pm, along with addresses and other details.
32-year-old Mehul, who is a software professional brought to everyone's notice a detailed spreadsheet that showed all the assistance that people of Mumbai could provide.?
Facebook/Mehul
Indiatimes reached out to Mehul and this is what he said --?
Mehul was accompanied by a bunch of masterminds who worked together to pull Mumbai out of this calamity. One guy (who wishes to keep his name anonymous) came up with the hashtag that assisted thousands across the city.?
Others included Bhumil Haria, Aditya Sengupta and Gaurav Chaturvedi who helped with data, Karthik Balakrishnan fabricated the main website and brought impeccable coordination to the table.
Sandhya Ramesh along with Sowmya Rao helped to put up useful information as the needs changed from just hosting people to requirements of other essentials - food, clothing, medicine.?
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Last but not the least, Dharmaraj Solanki who helped in listing emergency contact information and fetched important contact details which are listed on the website. ?
"Earlier in the day when people were comparing the rain to 2005, I realized that today we have much better access to internet connectivity on the phone, more mediums of communication and a lot more people are online. But, there is still no central place where people could find useful information. "
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"I asked around for the same but got no positive response. Around the same time, I saw some people offering their place for people who were stranded and #RainHosts was the hashtag that was being used for the same. So, we quickly started collecting that information in one place, on a Google Spreadsheet."
BCCL
There is not an ounce of doubt that Mumbai couldn't have survived this catastrophe that had the city?smeared in water without helping each other. Thanks to the tiny efforts of thousands of people who pounced on every opportunity to save a life or help distraught souls.?
From offering free food in the middle of the night to opening gates of their houses to random strangers.?