Chapter 36: Interested In Remaining Disinterested
1961Page 4,767 of 5,444
This was surprising to Francis and Eruch, inasmuch as Baba did it suddenly. They returned to Guruprasad, and a few hours later a Baba lover high up in the public works department telephoned warning that the Mutha River would burst an earthen dam and flood waters would pour into the city.1
To quote from a Times of India article:
Floods from the river — worst in living memory — hit the city twice in four hours. The first wave came in the forenoon when the raging river destroyed the Panshet Dam. Another mass of water cascaded into the city when the Khadakwasla Dam gave way in the afternoon. The entire city is without water supply and electricity. Although some prior warning was available, the people had to take the full fury of the swollen Mutha River.
The men and women and Baba moved to the top floor of Guruprasad. Although the floods had inundated the business and residential areas of the city, the waters stopped some distance from Guruprasad, leaving the bungalow unaffected.
However, the railing at Bund Garden that Baba had leaned against was completely submerged and there were boats on the spot where he had stood. Nearly half of Poona was under six feet or more of water. Shinde's shoe shop was completely flooded, as were V. M. Pandit and Ali Ramjoo's homes. Pandit was a schoolteacher at whose house (by the riverbank) weekly meetings were held in Baba's name. While all the neighboring houses had collapsed in ruins, Pandit's home remained intact, though many of his belongings were lost. But the most astonishing thing was that the water that submerged the area stopped rising just beneath the framed picture of Baba that hung on his wall.
Similarly, at Ali Ramjoo's house, though the flood waters surged in carrying away tables and chairs, his collection of Baba books on a high shelf was spared. He also had a large stack of literature which belonged to the Poona Center. He was anxious that he would be liable for its cost if it were all ruined, but that material too was undamaged.
However, at Shinde's shoe shop his entire stock of shoes, boots and sandals was damaged. When the waters receded, Baba went to the shop and sat among the debris. Slimy mud covered the footwear, but Baba assured Shinde not to worry. Shinde had every pair cleaned and disposed of at half-price. (The following year, Baba himself performed the opening ceremony of his new shop, and his business prospered.)
Footnotes
- 1.Meherwan Jessawala explained, "A year prior to this, in 1960, a new dam was being constructed near Poona. Poona's water came from the Khadakwasla Dam, which also supplied water to the military, about 10 or 12 miles to the south of Poona. They foresaw water shortages because Poona was expanding very rapidly, getting industrialized. Upstream to Khadakwasla, they built another dam. Khadakwasla was a masonry dam, built in the British times, and this new Panshet Dam, upstream, was an earthen dam, because the engineers thought that an earthen dam would be all right and it would save on the cost. The engineers warned the government that because it was an earthen dam, it would require a couple of years at least to settle down and be strong enough to support a body of water. Very soon, though, there were to be elections, and a political expediency was resorted to. The chief minister, despite protests from engineers, gave the order that the dam should be allowed to be filled up. The sluice gates, which had been kept open so that no water would build up, were lowered. Already people had been suffering water shortages, and the minister wanted to proclaim how much he had helped the people by giving them this new source of water. He thought that by doing this he would have a feather in his cap. The engineers reluctantly had to agree. But sometime in mid-July 1961, there was a big cloudburst in the monsoon season, and I don't think we ever had rains before or after of that intensity. For three days and nights, there was a continuous downpour. A huge body of water began to accumulate behind the earthen dam. The engineers tried frantically to raise the sluice gates, but they jammed. A terrible catastrophe was foreseen by the engineers. They sent a warning all downstream that they were unable to do anything. People all along the banks of the river should be evacuated. Poona had never had any such occasion in the past, so these warnings were taken lightly. People just ignored them. There were quite a lot of slum dwellings on the riverbanks, and the river flowed through the heart of the city. So, people had nowhere to go, and it was raining cats and dogs. There was no letup in the rains. It just went on pouring and pouring, until at last the poor dam could hold it no longer. It just suddenly gave way. A huge body of water gushed out from the breech and downstream was the Khadakwasla dam, a solid masonry dam, but the force of the water and its mass was so great that eventually Khadakwasla failed. There was a huge breech there, and now the full impact came to Poona. Within minutes, the low-lying parts of Poona were under 20 ft. of water. Many people died."