Nowhere to Go: A Monsoon Nightmare on the Flooded Streets of Ahmedabad

This is a real-life first person account of a couple in Ahmedabad on Thursday night.

We left for work on Thursday around 8:30 AM, expecting an ordinary day. We looked forward to the weekend; it was just around the corner. Little did we know, we would spend the night looking not for home, but for any place that could shelter us.

By evening, my friend and I began what should have been a routine drive back to Vejalpur—30 to 35 minutes of cursing people’s driving sense and infrastructure while letting the music on the playlist keep us sane. Instead, we drove from one flooded road to another. The soundtrack was not the soft pitter-patter of the rain, but a stormy, torrential roar that felt as if every stone was being pelted at our car. Every familiar route had vanished under water.

At Shivranjini, we took the bridge expecting we were not far from home, but as we descended, it was almost a lake. At Prernatirth Derasar Road, the roads disappeared again. Outside Shalby Hospital, water climbed toward the bonnet of our car. Every decision became a gamble: move ahead and risk stalling, or turn back and begin all over again.

Yet, amid the chaos, humanity stood out. Residents stood in knee-deep water, waving vehicles away from flooded stretches and guiding drivers toward safer roads. Strangers pushed stalled cars to the side to keep traffic moving. Tempo drivers offered lifts to people who had given up on reaching home on foot. In a city brought to a standstill, it was ordinary people, not uniforms or sirens, who kept others moving.

The rain refused to stop. Our wipers worked at full speed, yet we could barely see ahead. Every passing minute brought another question from home and friends: "Have you reached?" We had no answer.

For a brief while, a small restaurant became our refuge. A bowl of soup and a plate of pulao offered warmth after hours of anxiety. When the rain slowed, hope returned. But so did the floodwaters.

We tried every approach to Vejalpur that we knew. We tried roads suggested by friends. We tried routes we would never normally consider. Each one ended the same way—submerged, blocked, or simply impassable. A tree had fallen at the end of a relatively clearer road, forcing us to make a U-turn in Prahladnagar, while overflowing lake water left the streets completely waterlogged.

Close to midnight, we stopped trying to get home. We started looking for a bed instead.

Hotel after hotel turned us away. Every room was occupied by people stranded exactly like us—passengers who had missed flights, travelers whose trains had been canceled, and families unable to return home because the city had shut them out.

And no, we weren’t alone. Our friends in safe havens were checking on us, asking for updates, suggesting routes, helping us find vacant hotels, and offering their homes. But the road to a roof was inaccessible.

Thankfully, a coffee shop sheltered us. Wet socks were packed away in a paper bag; wet sandals were all we had to bear. Drinking water and hot coffees were bought. Thank goodness for clean washrooms and restaurants generous with tissues! Life seemed alright for that moment. Being practical survivors, we decided to spend two hours there resting, recuperating, and chatting. We thought that since the rain had stopped, we would wait until the waters receded.
Past midnight, we tried again. The roads had not changed. All five approach roads were blocked.

We eventually reached a friend's home through one of the few accessible roads. Thank goodness for people who answer calls past midnight hours.

The journey from University Road to Vejalpur should take 30 to 40 minutes in peak traffic. That night, we never completed it.

People often say a city is tested when disaster strikes. Last night, many were left with no safe way to get home.