For these four people, flooding is a way of life

Late in the afternoon, Latish Shetty sat snugly inside Sadhna, a popular Udupi eatery in Parel's Hindmata area, savouring a plate of steaming uttappam and chutney. Despite the number of Udupi restaurants in city declining, Sadhna is still standing and can be usually seen brimming with people at any given time of the day. But with the incessant rains for the last few days, as Shetty said later, the restaurant has been bearing a forlorn look, with barely two tired customers wrapping up their late lunch.

"We see anywhere between 500 and 600 people everyday, but for the last few days, hardly 20 have come in. Why would they, if half of their chairs are under water?" asked Shetty (57).

Elaborating on his monsoon woes, he added that every monsoon Sadhna, which was started in 1944 by his father, shuts shop for at least three days. "I took charge of the restaurant in 1975, but till date there has been little improvement in the area's flooding situation. Per day, we incur losses of up to Rs30,000. Then there is the hassle of shifting equipment, important papers and files to the upper racks for our staffers who stay here," Shetty said.

Shetty is not alone. For more than half a century, dealing with floods and subsequent losses has become a way of life for residents and shop owners of the huge retail and wholesale market at the saucer-shaped Hindmata area.

Prakash Patidar, who runs Janta tea house — a popular 40-year-old joint — earns only Rs1,500 a day during the monsoon as against the Rs7,500 he makes during the rest of the year. "Our shop is filled with knee-deep water during heavy downpours, so business suffers heavily. We try to do brisk business during the rest of the months," he said.

Similarly, Jagdish Dedhia (63), owner of three garment shops in the area, suffered a loss of Rs35,000 on Friday, when water entered his shop, following massive flooding in Hindmata that lasted for hours.

"We were not prepared for the sudden deluge, so water damaged a substantial amount of our goods. We had to sell them off at half their original price. For us and the 700 shops that are part of this market, these three months are like a long holiday," Dedhia said, adding that a handful of people come to his shop on such days, as compared to the 500 customers from different parts of the city on any other day. "For nearly a week every month during this period, we keep the shutters down."

Dedhia said he believes the civic authorities are doing their best to rid the area of this problem. "Hindmata is a low-lying area, so water tends to accumulate here. I'm sure civic authorities are doing their best; I have read newspaper reports that new pumping stations are coming up, but for the last many years, even half an hour of rain leads to water-logging in this area, and just one hour of continuous, heavy rain submerges our shop in one-and-a-half-feet of water," he added.

The worst sufferers are probably the area's residents. Forty-two-year-old Manish Dedhia, who stays in a joint family in an 110-year-old building in Dadar, said it is cumbersome to navigate through waist-deep water. The ground floor of the four-storey building, which has an upholstery shop run by the family, sees nearly two feet of water during heavy rains that takes hours to recede. Showing the mark left by the muddy water on the shop's walls, Manish said most people have now got used to the flooding in the area.

"Now, we will be surprised if it doesn't flood during rains," he laughed.