September Hoax

It is the last day of September 2020. The heavy downpour still continues, unrelenting. It rained heavily, incessantly all through the month. Lakes and rivers have swelled up to alarming levels. The meteorological experts have predicted more rains throughout the next week. Don’t know what devastation is waiting to wreak its anger on the city which is already reeling from the deadly Covid19.

It brings back memories of fifty years ago when the city faced unusually heavy rains almost reaching the level of floods. It rained incessantly without any respite all through the month. And then, someone decided to play a cruel joke on the hapless citizens. It was 24th of September in the year of 1970, the year I just joined college after finishing higher school.

I was at the general market shopping for new shoes. Those days, I was quite fond of ankle high boots. The kind the cowboys wore in the western movies. It usually needed enough time to hunt around to get what I was looking for. After hours of hopping around footwear shops, I finally found what I was looking for, a tan colored pair of beautiful boots. I was thrilled and quite exhilarated. I loved those boots!

As I was walking home, swinging the shoe package, I suddenly felt a commotion all around. People were hurrying up. They were actually running hither thither as if chased by someone or something. And then a group of men ran screaming “bhaago, Gandipet ka katta toot gaya, bhaago, paani aaraha hai (run, Gandipet bridge has crumbled, run, water is coming)”. It did not make much sense to me. Gandipet Lake was nearly 25 kilometres away from the city. Even if the bridge collapsed, how can it be a threat to the city! As I looked around, I got the answer.

Men in groups were looting shops that were still open or were in the process of closing. They just grabbed whatever they could lay their hands on and ran. They did not even spare the poor street hawkers, selling fruits, toys and general household wares on their push carts. I knew beyond any doubt that what was happening around was a scam, a hoax being played on gullible people. 

The looting men could have been part of the scamsters who created the hoax or they were taking advantage of the confused situation. I couldn’t take it any more of the looks of fear and desperation on the faces of the shopkeepers. They were caught in a helplessness, not knowing whether to run for their lives or to save their shops.

I hurried home wondering what could be the situation at home. As I neared my house, I saw my dad standing outside our house with a worried look on his face. My uncle was standing in front of the house, with his hands on his hips, glaring at no one in particular. When he saw me, he screamed “where have you been, the whole city is in fear, people are drowning and you are roaming around”. 

I have never seen my uncle so angry or heard him talk to me with such anger and rudeness. His eyes were blazing with anger and I could almost feel smoke coming out of his nostrils and ears. I blurted out “I was at the market and I did not see any water. I only saw men looting shops”. That made my uncle more mad. He screamed at me to go inside the house. When you are an elder, anything and everything you say is right! It has to be right! That is life!

As for the chaos and mayhem, when you get possessed by fear, the power of reasoning, education, everything goes out of the window. The scamsters who played the hoax understood that fact. But I wonder if they even expected that the hoax would work or even imagined the magnitude of chaos they would create with their evil scheme. And oh boy, did it work! It was a very successful hoax.

Later I came to know that many people had abandoned their homes after packing whatever personal belongings they could gather and proceeded towards the hills and higher grounds. There were also reports of many houses being burgled. 

I do not know how many people really fell for the scam, but it was one of the most cruel, sad, embarrassing hoaxes ever played on the people of the city of Hyderabad. I want to believe that people have become wiser after that cruel joke. But you can never be sure. People might still be falling for bigger hoaxes, of different kinds, played by master scamsters in the garb of well wishers.

Anyway, it was an unbelievable incident that I happened to witness. That unforgettable incident from my past was brought back to life thanks to an article in one of the local media houses ("paani aaya bhago").