3000) Did You Know Series (83): The Great Flood of 1971 in the River Gomti in Lucknow:
(With potholed roads, off and on rains, water puddles everywhere making it difficult to walk and collect everyday provisions, in Pune, an old memory rekindled itself.)
I was studying in La Martiniere College, Lucknow from 1970 to 1975.
I was a boarder in second Dorm, when during September 1971, there was incessant/torrential rain during the month of September 1971, and we gathered from newspaper reports that the River Gomti had breached at least two embankments and was flowing some five to six feet above the danger mark and the continuous rains was making matters worse.
Then suddenly, sometime after classes, we noticed that the Gomti waters were flowing into/through the Mart Lake surrounding the Lart and the river and the lake had become one - with a strong current flowing through the lake.
The current was becoming stronger and stronger every minute. Quite a few of us ran back to our classrooms and brought rulers to measure the rising flood waters, while some of us simple collected fallen twigs.
The water levels were rising at an alarming pace. By our calculations, the Gomti waters would be rising up to the Mart steps by late evening. The thrill of getting a long unplanned holiday was getting offset by a concern of what will happen if the lower/main levels of Mart was flooded, and we were cut off from "food supplies" for days.
Col. Daniels, the College Principal was trying to measure the rising flood level with a cane from his rack of canes which was placed in his office, mainly for intimidating the students and an occasional caning of errant boys.
Some of the senior boys were made to undergo a "punishment drill" (which involved going up and down the Mart steps at double pace).
As soon as Col. Daniels went away, the "budding scientists" were back checking out the rising flood level, which showed no sign of abating or levelling off. We noticed a lot of dead snakes and rescued a turtle which was caught in the fast-flowing current. The dead snakes were deposited in the College Bio lab.
Three of us mustered courage to go to Col. Daniels office and presented him with the facts. There was a state of panic in the principal's office. An immediate decision was taken by him to shut the College down for the duration of the floods.
We quickly emptied our lockers in the Locker rooms and hurried through the upper passages to the gates of the College, which the flood waters were showing signs of inundating quickly.
I had two places/houses to go to - Paper Mill Colony, Nishatganj (my grandmother's house) and the Separated Family Quarters where my aunt stayed in the Lucknow Cantonment (bang opposite the Mahommed Bagh Club), as my uncle then a Major had been mobilised for the impending Bangladesh Liberation War where the Indian Army was training the "Mukti Bahini".
As soon as I reached my aunt's house, I promptly fell sick with a bout of flu. My aunt recalled later that she had never seen so many little girls in the neighbourhood visiting her house with flowers and chocolates/snacks for me during my period of illness, but that is another story.
We learnt later that some of the boys were stranded/stayed on the Mart campus during the entire period. They were supplied provisions through motorboats which came regularly to help them out.
I used to go to see the impact of the floods wherever I could. The most distressing sight was a couple of animals impaled on the Zoo's spiked railing, which had impeded their escape from the flood waters. Some of the animals had to be placed on raised platforms in their paddocks to keep them above the waterline.
Water was being kept back from the lion house by an emergency placement of sandbags and boulders.
Flood waters had come all the way to the main shopping areas. Luckily in Paper Mill Colony only the road was inundated, and all housing had been largely spared.
Then came the day, when the floodwaters receded, and we went back to Mart.
As I walked back on the road, I noticed that a lot of earthworms had perished in the flood and it was very difficult to find a way through them. Our locker rooms were full of mud and earthworms and dead fish. It was quite a while that we were able to reclaim our locker rooms.
The Army and civilian engineers did their best to mitigate the impact of the Floods - continuously plugging the breaches in the embankments of the Gomti, suppling food provisions, evacuating/rescuing stranded civilians etc.
The aftermath:
- The Lucknow civic authorities built high embankments on either side of the Gomti River all along the major portions of the areas where the Gomti had breached its embankments.
- A high flood level marker was etched on a mart wall near the recreation room, where we used to play chess. This marker was decidedly higher than the flood level of 1960.
- Lucknow has never witnessed this kind of a flood ever since.
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