Station Announcement:
"Attention all relief workers: this is not a rescue mission; this is a rehearsal in remembering each other."
July 18, 2018The water rose in the night.It came quietly at first — lapping against the gate, then knocking.By morning, it had swallowed the road, the postbox, the mango tree's lower branches.From the terrace, the town looked like a map being erased by a wet thumb.
I signed up as a volunteer because I couldn't bear to just watch.The WhatsApp group said "Bring rope, torch, biscuits, patience."I brought everything except the last.
July 19They sent us to the camp at St. Mary's School, converted into a shelter.The classrooms smelled of chalk, sweat, and wet shoes.Children slept on desks pushed together.A nurse from Malappuram ran the medical counter —a calm woman with eyes that didn't blink when she dressed wounds.Her name tag read Sara Ibrahim.When she spoke, people quieted, even the anxious.
At lunch she refused to eat until everyone else had.Someone told me she used to work abroad and had come home on leave when the floods hit."Why did you stay back?" I asked.She smiled. "Because water rises faster when you look away."
I wrote that down.
July 20A teacher arrived today with a group of boys carrying notebooks in plastic covers.They set up a corner of the hall and began lessons — spelling, drawing, multiplication tables.The children's laughter cut through the smell of damp clothes like sunshine.The teacher's voice was soft but firm.I overheard him say, "Education must outswim disaster."
Later I learned his name — Arjun Nair.He had started something called Rainlight Classes.He told me, "You can't let children learn fear as their first subject."I nodded like I understood.I didn't, not yet.
July 21We worked near the bridge today, passing sandbags hand to hand.A journalist with a camera stood in the rain, refusing shelter.Someone said she was documenting the effort for a Delhi magazine.She talked to people without making them pose.Her name, I think, was Ananya.When I asked what story she was chasing, she said,"Not a story. A reminder."
At sunset she sat on the bridge railing, writing in a notebook as the light dimmed.I wanted to ask her what she was writing, but some words belong only to their moment.
July 22One of the boats capsized near the temple lane.We pulled out three people, coughing and shivering.A young man — a mechanic, maybe — fixed the boat's broken motor in the rain using a borrowed wrench.He didn't wait for thanks.When I asked his name, he only said, "Manoj."
Later, I saw him helping a boy start a generator with the same quiet focus.Someone whispered, "He's just back from the Gulf. Knows how machines breathe."That night, the generator kept the camp lights alive till morning.
July 23The rain eased.From the roof of the school, the town looked stitched together by boats and kindness.People who'd never spoken before were passing buckets, sharing umbrellas, finishing each other's sentences.
Sara bandaged Arjun's hand when he cut it on debris.Ananya photographed them from a distance but didn't publish the image.I sat beside Manoj as he rewired the camp fan.He asked me if I believed in coincidence.I said yes, because it seemed easier than saying no.
July 24Relief trucks arrived. So did fatigue.Someone played music from a phone — old Malayalam film songs about rain and return.For the first time in a week, people smiled without guilt.I looked around and realised I had memorised faces I might never see again.
Sara, wiping her hands on a towel, told me she was planning to start a hospice on her family's land by the backwaters."People deserve gentle endings," she said.Arjun promised to send her his students once schools reopened — "They'll paint your hospice walls."Ananya scribbled something in her notebook, eyes glistening.Manoj tied down the tent ropes tighter as if anchoring us all.
I didn't say goodbye to any of them.It felt wrong to interrupt the rhythm of people doing good.
August 2The water withdrew as quietly as it came.Houses reappeared, coated in mud but standing.So did roads, memories, debts, and gratitude.
Before leaving, I walked one last time along the bridge.On a wall, half-cleaned by the rain, someone had written in chalk:
We rebuild what remembers us.
I don't know who wrote it — maybe Arjun, maybe one of his students, maybe the river itself.
August 5Back home, my shoes still smell of floodwater.My hands ache for the weight of sandbags.The city has moved on.But every time it rains, I hear the same sounds —Sara's steady voice,Arjun's calm instructions,Ananya's camera click,Manoj's wrench turning,and hundreds of strangers passing buckets in rhythm.
I keep their names in this notebook not as heroes, but as coordinates.Maybe, someday, I'll find where their stories meet again.Maybe that place is already waiting, somewhere beyond the next rain.