The Hindu : National : When the beach vanished in a jiffy

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Dec 28, 2004

National

National

When the beach vanished in a jiffy

By Dhanya Parthasarathy

The normal view of the Bay of Bengal from a Mamallapuram hotel room.

CHENNAI, DEC. 27. When Naresh Lalvani (38) waking up on Sunday morning at a beach resort near the shore temple in Mamallapuram, poured coffee into his cup, he thought the waves seemed louder than usual.

"Or is it just my imagination?" he asked himself. When he went out into the balcony, he was shocked to find the beach missing.

The next thing he knew, the waves were rising in a flash. He ran to the next room to check on his friends, and the three watched in horror as a wall of water filled up the beach, the ground floor of the resort and lapped around their knees on the first floor.

"I thought my end had come," recalls Mr. Lalvani, who puffed up cigarette after cigarette in anxiety. "My first thought was whether my wife, Sunita, was safe — and I was relieved she was in the health club."

"I remembered the 9/11 incident. And remembered the photo of the man who took a picture of a plane crashing into the twin towers. I thought, if I go, maybe my camera will survive," says the businessman, who clicked these pictures as nature lashed out.

"It was over in less than two minutes. I thought I would be swept off when the water subsided almost as quickly as it came," he adds the adrenaline still pumping as he narrates the incident for the nth time.

"It was traumatic for my wife, who saw the resort getting filled up like a bucket. She was worried sick about her lazy husband sleeping on the first floor," he says.