Thiruvananthapuram: Until a few days ago, several millionaires in Kerala lived next to their far poorer fellow citizens without any reason to see each other, but it only took a few hours of copious rains to bring them all together, as nature played the role of a great leveller.
As water levels rose quicker than expected, several well-off families in different districts had to wait desperately with the poor for rescue teams to reach them and take them to safety.
In many cases, the affluent had to be at the mercy of poor fishermen who were volunteering with their boats in the rescue efforts.
Neither did the rising waters discriminate between the homes of the rich and powerful and those of the poor and meek.
In the state capital, actress Mallika Sukumaran had to be evacuated in a large vessel used for cooking after water gushed into her bungalow at Kundamankadavu.
Congress leader and former Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president, V.M. Sudheeran was evacuated from his home in Gourseesapattam in Thiruvananthapuram in a rubber boat, and architect G. Shankar’s newly-constructed house in Vattavila in the capital was inundated.
Marthoma Church metropolitan and centenarian, Philipose Mar Chysostum was moved from his residence on the bank of the Pamba river to a hospital in Kozhenchery, and in Kudalloor the flood waters of Bharatapuzha entered the house of famous writer M.T. Vadudevan Nair. The writer has not been staying at that house.
