survival

mumbai's having epic rain. it's been pouring for the last 48 hours or so, and the commute home was hellish for most people. i took a calculated risk and decided to ride home, and luckily for me, it paid off. there were a few things i did to mitigate the risk before i set off:

• double checked the fuel level of my bike. i had at least 60 km worth of fuel for the 13 km ride home.
• charged my phone fully, made sure the power bank i carry with me also had a fair bit of charge
• carried a small water bottle of water
• had a quick snack before i left off
• wrapped and double wrapped everything valuable + electronic in a waterproof pouch inside my bag, which is supposed to be water resistant to begin with
• called home before leaving
• kept some spare change on hand outside the bag, for emergencies
• weighed my options for the route to take home. chose to stick to broad roads, which i know are not low-lying, even though they would probably have more traffic than the alternatives

luckily for me, it worked out better than expected. i reached home in barely 45 minutes more than my usual time, despite a chai break on the way when the worst of the traffic was past me. most of my office colleagues weren't as lucky though - some of them took twice as long, mainly due to them traveling by car.

once i got home, i dried off and was treated to a mug of hot chocolate, courtesy the wife.

while i settled in and started thinking about dinner, my wife asked me if my phone was fully charged - a message she recieved reminded people that the electric supply might fail if there is too much flooding - and some low lying parts near home were already over a foot deep in water when i was getting home.

that's when i remembered an old thought, regarding survival (it was another rainy day, and I was traveling home by office bus, with a snack and some water to save myself). not sure if i blogged it back then (i can't find the post now - but i guess i didn't search much).

so anyway, i started thinking about what i'd have to do if the rain continued, and shruti and i were stuck at home under various circumstances.

we have the basics covered: about 800 litres of water in the overhead tank, which should last us comfortably for a week if we had to stretch it. plenty of batteries for our torches. and one puny hand crank torch, for an absolute last resort. about 3 days of ready-to-eat stuff. enough food supplies to last us two weeks, i'd say. but that's where i figured the problem lies: we have a piped gas supply, which runs underground. which means that if the gas AND electricity supply is lost, we'd have no way to cook.

now i do have my bike downstairs, and it does have a fair bit of fuel that i could get my hands on quite easily. but i have no safe way to burn it.

the only things i guess i could use to cook would be the 3 litres of cooking oil we have in store. and i don't have an efficient way to burn the oil. i guess i could make a makeshift stove out of utensils, but it's something i've never done before, and i'm not sure if i'd get it right.

also, i'm under prepared from a communication point of view, as i only have enough juice in the powerbank to keep my phone going for a couple of days. i could switch to a backup phone that has longer battery life, but i'd lose access to the internet. i'm guessing our adsl connection and wired phone would pop before (or maybe about the same time as) the electric supply does. but i guess we'd survive being holed up indoors, quite literally between these 4 walls, for about a week.

oh, and we have books. i wonder if there's anything else we'd need. hmmmm.