Flash Flood

As many family and friends are already aware, there was a terrible flood that killed hundreds of people in Ladakh on August 6 in a matter of 30 minutes. The water that stormed through the region was only a segment of a larger phenomenon running through this part of the world: Pakistan is devastated with millions at risk for cholera. Delhi’s concrete buildings have been flooded. The Punjab region has farmers sitting on miniscule mounds of earth while brown water swirls around them for miles, and China has lost several thousands. My father-in-law, a remnant of the Old World as I call him, who is 75 years old, said this was the first time he had ever witnessed something of this magnitude, and many of us surmise that, year after year, as the earth’s weather patterns become more and more erratic, that global warming is truly showing up to give us some very difficult lessons. (Probably 10 days after the flood I happened to be watching “The Day the Earth Stood Still” on HBO and was grimacing that Hollywood had pretty much gotten a good metaphorical grasp on reality for once).

Here’s what I quickly scribbled down the day after the flood:

Last night there was a flash flood in Leh and throughout Ladakh. I have never experienced anything like it. The experience of a natural disaster is extraordinary, awesome. There was a storm on the horizon and above the Royal Palace when Abbass and I went out to dinner – lightning flashed occasionally. By the time it was 12:30am, the storms had come in with a thunderous roar. My gut was absolutely twisted in raw fear. Fear of such weight that my body was carrying it in my belly. The lightning was flashing several times every, single second. I had never seen lightning flash with such frequency, but the light would dance in front of one’s eyes. The thunder as a result was a constant roar – a drumming army - and the rain that came down was a torrential, splattering wash. When I peered out my window there was nothing to see – only the gray cascade of water which didn’t seem to rush down from the sky so much as just rush OUT from every which way, and specs of mud splattered across all the windows. The feeling was terrifying, suffocating, like a tunnel of souls being sucked away and down into an abyss. Anwar (Abbass’ brother) was running up the stairs in a panic, saying to everyone that we had to get out – apparently he had run down and made the mistake of opening the doors and let a rush of water over his body. Abbass ran out and had to get empty sandbags from the backside, fill them with sand from the Ladakhi toilet and then rush out and blockade the door. Already the courtyard was filled with two feet of rushing water – the outside was a rushing river almost four feet tall.

The first floor of the guesthouse is now caked in mud and gutted. Pieces of rooftop have fallen onto the tile floor. I am exhausted like I have been wrung out; others more exhausted for having stayed up all night hauling buckets of muddy water out of the courtyard. All the major infrastructure is out – the BSNL office that holds the servers are down. The phone lines are down, electricity is out, the hospital is apparently gone with only 4-5 rooms standing. My parents know more about what is happening around us than us; we are enclosed in an island of natural tragedy, can only go so far as a human can walk – and sometimes not for being blocked by a huge sweep of muddy water. Unofficial reports say that about 200 laborers and their families from Bihar were swept away in their respective neighborhood; the main market street is all but abandoned and caked with mud; all the shops are closed and locked. It is hot; the streets seem suffocated in the sunlight as the mud and water lay secured in potholes and pockets throughout. The main market, which has become a ghost-town with wires laced from streetlamp to streetlamp as the most prominent feature – has fallen to gray and dust as all the storefronts show off their corrugated metal fronts and faded paint jobs.

What is extraordinary is the guests who have stayed here and their generosity; two male visitors hauled water buckets with Abbass all last night, with water that had filled the courtyard and throwing it out into the street; a couple from France is cleaning out the courtyard of the piles of mud with a single plastic dustbin and dinner plates. We have had the sheer luck of being positioned in the wayward labyrinth of the Old Town so the waters didn’t collect and sweep us away; and that the foundation of the house, claimed by Abbass’ ancestors five generations ago, was cemented in stone. Some guests who fled during the night have returned: 3 Canadians and an American go out each day to volunteer in Choglomsar to help haul mud out of people’s homes. Aamir had slept through the entire experience. For some reason he always sleeps straight through the loudest and the strongest of storms, sounds, journeys. I do not know what he dreams of…

Here’s more in the days afterward:

The front of the guesthouse has 2 feet of mud piled in front of it. Abbass worked to set concrete blocks the day after in case another flash flood decided to come upon us in the days following. The mud has a really insidious nature; it dissolves immediately when water touches it, but when it dries it is hard as concrete. It is backbreaking to shovel. That is why people have used it for housing. In the dry, desert climate of Ladakh, all the most traditional homes are encased in the mud. They always smell of the fresh earth, are always cool in the hot summer afternoons. And those were the ones washed away with their families. I can imagine that many are fishing out the corpses from the hardest masses of earth.

Time is passing by so slowly. We have very little that is exciting to eat. There is no fresh bread or milk in the mornings anymore, so we go out quickly and buy the sliced white bread, which is really of poor quality, because it crumbles underneath your fingers. I obtain boxed milk for Aamir, but because we have no electricity, no refrigeration, the milk curdles into a solid, sour mass in a day. Time for a chai substitute. I am glad that only a day before I got cash from the ATM and a massive box of diapers for Aamir, but alarmed to find out from our Kashmiri shopkeeper tomatoes won’t come for another month, the basis for everything, as if that is a signal for something worse and more dire to come. I surmise this might be a good time to try again for some toilet training. For some more days it is rice, dahl and packaged noodles. The second day we fit about 7 guests into the winter kitchen and feed them rajma dahl since no restaurants have opened. The kitchen was filled with philosophy and laughter that night. We had a couple from Iceland, French, Canadians, an American. There are always a lively twining of lives here.
…
Abbass and I ventured to take a drive with Aamir to see what was going on, we wear masks over our faces; for the last two days it has felt like a fishbowl where we are enclosed in rotten mud, and I am dying to see what the rest of the world sees. When we drive down towards the airport past the opening gate of the city, we discover that an entire swatch of land has been washed away, positioned unluckily in the wake of a valley of two hills. The skeletal remains of the buildings make my eyes go wide. This is the first natural disaster of this scale I’ve ever experienced. Entire buildings are gone. There is just a wide plain of mud. Others have had their walls ripped off and their insides showing. Cars and whole trucks have been tossed up against their walls like toys, or casually ripped apart. Abbass’ old elementary school is nothing but a field of mud with a single skeletal remain of a white Suzuki sitting in the middle. The Indian Army golf field is now speckled with tents made from parachute silk with those that lost their homes.

Worse hit is the town of Choglamsar. After several days the Himalayan Road workcrews – who have the extraordinary job of keeping the roads cleared and maintained after each winter in the Himalaya, so they are damn good at what they do – have already cleared the path toward the neighboring village. We drive by to see buildings so deeply buried only the roofs are peeking out from the earth. Choglamsar was actually saved, in part, because there was a large Buddhist mani wall that ran the length of the road. This acted as a barrier, but still, another large swath of land was washed away in between it, and the crews had built a bridge over the area because a river was now in the place where buildings formerly stood. 8 feet of mud was caked over the main street, with rocks entrenched in the earth, each about the size of about half a car. Huge entanglements of tree roots are showing at different points of the road. You didn’t have a chance. The storefronts had their corrugated metal doors actually knocked in so the metal looks like it was punched by a giant fist – some even have cars thrown in. Crowds of people are milling about; labourers, foreigners, members of rescue teams, the Indian Army, all working together, one heavy dishful by dishful, to haul the mud out of the stores.

Lack of good food suddenly is becoming a fact, but by no means dire. Aamir is sorely disappointed that no ice cream has been delivered to town. I explain to him what a flood is, and that the trucks couldn’t deliver his good food. He understands. I have the sudden mommy insight that this is a great opportunity for me to cut down on his addiction to sugar. More chaos seems to be erupting in Kashmir – the region has had several deaths a day, and trucks have ceased to come in from that side as well, so gone are our stocks of papaya, pineapple, sweet apples and watermelon from that rich region. Stores in town are running on the empty side, but after only 3-4 days, the road from Manali is opened again and the shelves are flushed with the usual products. Except milk.

In the streets of day-to-day, there is no public display of sadness across everyone’s faces. Only a sober look, a downward turn of the eyes, the karmic acceptance of fate so natural to Indians. They have increased the flights out of Leh to take the labourers home to Bihar. They want to be reunited with their families. I am filled with first instinct to protect my child every daily hour, wondering if I could do more to help the others. There is no mistaking that. We are more than fine. Suddenly there is primary need to keep him well-fed, protected from the results of what happened, as he tries to “make roti” between his little hands from the piles of mud outside. He is all that I am right now. Abbass has hardly gotten sleep. One thing or another happens night after night – another heavy rain came in a week later and everyone ran up to the hills. Only Abbass stayed and strategically shoveled earth so the grated irrigation ducts wouldn’t fill up and create another flood outside the house. He has lost at least 10 kg.

We are now getting real statistics. Now 150+ people officially declared dead. The hundreds that are missing can only be presumed dead and encased in the piles of hard earth. One is a relative of the family, a distant cousin, only 35 years old, whose home is situated a stone’s throw from ours in the Old Town. As is tradition, a group of female mourners gathers together. Their cries and sobs can be heard, hour after hour, for about 3 days continuously, across the old jumbled roofs. The sobs continue into the evening, as the sky clears, then erupt again into the gray and light rain that passes through the Indus Valley. Their pain spills out, hour after hour, never seems to cease. It is a rupture among the sidewinding stone streets, gets absorbed by the evening light that cascades across the bulk of the palace, a wound that cannot be filled.

Aamir meets Aamir

For this entry, I was going to provide details of the terrible devastation that tore through the Ladakh region on August 6, with the flash flood that carried the lives of over 150 people, with 800+ people still missing, but let me first begin with

I MET AND HAD A NATIONAL TV INTERVIEW WITH AAMIR KHAN. I CAN’T GET OVER IT. HUMANAHUMANAHUMANAGAAAAAGAAAAA!

(note: server is still out. Can't upload photos. It's killing me).

I know that this is possibly the worse thing to share with the world after a flash flood that killed hundreds of people, like chatting about who is going to win the Bombay Cricket Cup after 9-11, but I’m on a Twinkle Star high. My entire body is flushed with hormonal endocrine sparkles that are flowing from the tip of my head down to my dusty toes. Ever since I saw Aamir Khan in “Earth” and a singing forlorn taxi driver in Pardesi, I’ve felt he’s the most versatile actor to emerge from a film industry replete with love overdone, evil guys with mustaches and couples dancing in the Swiss hills ad nauseum. I’ve loved him ever since. In every unique film with his name plastered on the filmi poster, I have been fascinated with who he is going to play next, with what issue is going to be brought to the forefront with the wide reach Bollywood has over world audiences.

Oh yes, and we also happened to name our first-born son after him (yes friends, you know that about me).

Rumor had it Aamir Khan was visiting several schools in Ladakh, had donated several crore to the rehabilitation, and was running with the media to highlight the devastation. To meet him was a dose of karmic coincidence from several lifetimes ago. Maybe I saved people in a flood. Maybe Allah really is a Great Guy, as my hubby puts it.

My sister-in-law, her two daughters and I were visiting Stok village to meet with an old Buddhist friend of mine, and our taxi driver happened to be a friendly contact for a Buddhist lama, who was the right hand guy for this major Buddhist Rinpoche, who was Aamir Khan’s host par excellence around the region. He kept calling the Buddhist Lama to locate Aamir Khan, and thank goodness Buddhist Lamas keep cell phones on them these days, because around 6:30pm we got confirmation he was at Shey Monastery, driving a dark red Xylo SUV.

As the road converged from Stok to Choglamsar, our driver made a final confirmation call. We made a right turn toward Shey Monastery, and momentarily got blocked by a huge delivery truck and a spate of traffic, amidst collecting clouds of dust. (This actually made me really agitated, as if the billows actually could shrink minutes of opportunity). The blockage cleared, we sped through more insidious yellow clouds being whipped up from the road,and suddenly found ourselves driving straight towards a dark red Xylo. The vehicle pulls off to our right side of the road, andAamir Khan leaps out of the front seat with a white tee shirt and jeans, and walks to the stone border outside of the Dalai Lama’s summer property.

My sister-in-law is screaming.

We rapidly pop out of the car,I’m tempted to be snap happy as a manic paparazza, before realizing we are the first public visitors to be standing right next to him on the side of the road. The Aamir Khan entourage has, by sheer coincidence, stopped to conduct an interview with the accompanying television crew. Several bodyguards with branded tees are standing in a circumference around the actor in tough-guy cross-armed stance.

The next moment, my sister-in-law is getting an autograph, and the moment follows, I’m actually talking face to face with Aamir Khan. I tell him I’m American, from Orange County, California, working in LA, and then the inevitable comes out of my mouth, that yes, I named my son after him. At that moment, Aamir Khan opens his arms to hold Aamir Nordakh. Little Aamir screams “Noooo!”and clasped my entire torso like one of those Koala clips (if you ever knew what the feeling was like of wanting to eat your fist, that takes the crown). A camera lens is suddenly in my face, with a microphone from STAR TV news thrust in front of my mouth.

“Madam, you tell us how you became familiar with Aamir Khan? How do you feel about meeting Aamir Khan after naming your son after him?”

I feel hot drops forming on the tip of my nose. I start talking, as everything around me swirls to a murky hum while little Aamir squiggles uncomfortably in my arms.

“I’m speechless (chuckle from Aamir and interviewer) really I’ve always admired Aamir Khan for a long time for his unique films...like…uh…(pausing to think what that major film name was dammit)…3 idiots which addresses important issues like education and we’ve always been huge fans so to meet him here is amazing and I’ve always been a great admirer of his acting since being introduced to Bollywood several years ago….(profuse sweating as camera zooms in as I horrify myself by speaking the longest run-on sentence on human record, Aamir Nordakh then hitsmicrophone in annoyance and wants to suck it like a lollipop, which I’m sure sounds great in audio).

After blabbing for a minute, interviewer in Hindi: “And bada Aamir, do you have any words for chota Aamir?”

Aamir Khan speaks in Hindi, and tenderly places his hand on the side Little Aamir’s head. Little Aamir isn’t jiving with this entire situation at all. He starts screaming again. I missed his nap today. Perfect. Aamir Khan has a remedy. He whips out a Nestle chocolate bar and with a typical Khan gesture twiddles the package in front of Little Aamir between his fingers. Sudden silence. Little Aamir looks at the chocolate bar. Slowly takes it. Whispers a small “thank you” into the microphone. Smiles all around, even from tough bodyguards.

Little Aamir continues to ferociously scream at the camera lens to ‘go awaaaay’ like it’s the most horrid evil eye in the entire Southeast Asian continent. I am still trying to smile as serenely as possible as Aamir Khan and I chat a little more about his work. It strikes me that everything about this situation is very casual. There is a real ease about him, and a strong presence and focus. And I can’t frickin’ believe he’s standing right next to me, like a real entity made of flesh and blood rather than film. His face is filled out, eyes sparkling, his legs a little more bulky than the God of Six Pack that he was in Ghajini. After several minutes, the conversation naturally falls to close, we give each other a strong cordial handshake, and he’s off doing another interview with the same reporter.

Sidenote: I thought that with the lengthy film footage they acquired from him that I wouldn’t make the cut in the actual broadcast, because stupor and run-on sentences wouldn’t be good journalism. Two days afterwards, I find out that the footage including screaming Little Aamir on ZeeTV, Star News, and NDTV on August 19 from 8:30-10:30pm. As it goes in Leh, a bunch of folks saw it except me of course. Still working on acquiring the footage. I feel thrilled to have had it run, and the flip side, kind of chagrined that I sounded like a grammatical moron on national tv in a country of 1.3 billion people who speaks sophisticated British English.

As he’s conducting the second interview, I’m taking more photographs. Aamir Khan, for a moment in time, is looking right at me. Look away Lian! Is it the pink salwar? Aaaaa! Is it possible to fall in love with the image of a man when he's standing right next to you? Yes. Wait! Nooo. Stop it.

Aamir Khan finishes his interview, and amid a torrent of mosquitoes that are stinging the entire crew and my shoulders (a small price to pay), he gets back into the vehicle. He gives a small twinkle of a wave meant just for little Aamir, who is still whining, and then another look at me and a wave, before he's back on the road with an entourage of three SUVs.

My entire body is flushed. Later, I found out what King Aamir had told to little Aamir when speaking with the reporters in Hindi. He had essentially wished Aamir a lifetime where he gives happiness to others, and experiences happiness himself. To my little Aamir: when you are older, and you understand the people you have met, and places you have visited, and what you experienced, that is all I wish for you, that is all that is most important. After what we experienced here, when you come into existence, you arrive and face a lot of suffering, but we have a small time together with one another, to love one another. I'm so happy you chose me.