BANGALORE: Gowramma had dreams of earning a little extra money during the festive season. But they went down the drain on Thursday night as the skies opened and washed away the flowers, coconuts and other puja items that she sells outside the Gali Anjaneya temple on Mysore Road.
Gowramma (50), who has a small flower shop just outside the temple, says, “I normally close my shop at 9 pm every day and walk to my house. When I go home, I do not take home all the materials, but just cover them with thick plastic. When we came back to check at 10 pm, everything had been washed away. Only the wooden table and a few utensils were remaining. Water had risen more than three feet and even entered the temple.”
She says the puja items which had been washed away had cost her around `3,000. “Now I have lost my initial investment too.”
But she will not give up. On Friday, Gowramma and her son began arranging in her shop the flowers she had purchased from KR Market earlier. “I cannot stop selling flowers just because I lost them last night,” she says.
The story of Shabhina, a Rajendra Nagar resident who works as a maid, is different. “I have been staying here ever since I got married 13 years ago. This rain washed away our belongings. The rice I had stored in the kitchen was washed away. I could not go for work (today). The entire night, we could not sleep. There was no power. Even the candlesticks were floating in the water,” she recalls.
Tabriz and his sister Tasneem, who live in Anepalya, did not go to school on Friday. “Our books, bags and uniforms are wet. With this, how can we go to school?” asks Tabriz, who spent Thursday night wide awake as rain pounded the area.