Among the many things strewn outside homes at Quaid-e-milleth Nagar in Anakaputhur are albums which have been laid out to dry.
“These are photos of my daughter’s engagement and wedding over ten years ago. We do not have any other copies of these and have been trying to salvage them,” says Hameeda, a resident whose house was flooded with over four feet of water. For many whose houses were inundated during the floods, it was not just household appliances and furniture, but possessions with many memories attached to them that were destroyed.
Sumitha Gopalakrishnan of Kotturpuram says all that remained of her photo albums when they returned home were plain white sheets. “They were completely soaked and all the colour had run away. I’ve lost around 18 years of photos from family events and have no photos left of my son’s growing up years,” she says. Among the possessions she has lost are a number of letters which she had exchanged with her mother when she first moved to Chennai around twenty years ago. “While the furniture and appliances can be replaced, these photos cannot,” she says, ruefully.
A singer and music teacher in South Boag road says she lost hand-written music notations preserved for the last four decades after her home was flooded. “Many albums, which had black and white photographs, have also been completely destroyed as vintage albums did not have plastic photo holders and were made of paper,” she says.
Rare and old books have also borne the brunt of the calamity.
“Books, which are decades- old, and first-edition prints of many books which we had as part of our book collection, have been completely destroyed,” said Radha Narasimhan, a resident of T. Nagar, who runs a small printing press.
Many rare and old books, including first editions, were also destroyed
in the flooding
Published - December 15, 2015 12:00 am IST
