By this time we should have covered atleast 4 districts of TamilNadu as per plan … but the Chennai floods had other ideas for us :). We reached Chennai on Nov 20th and on 21st we shared an update about ShikshaDaan and the ShikshaDaan Yatra with 40 other batchmates of mine from ISB. Then we met a few key partners of ShikshaDaan over the next few days like Shashaank from V-Shesh. On Dec 1st, during the night, Chennai got flooded and our house at Pallikaranai also got flooded.

For the next four days, we stayed on the first floor with no electricity and no connectivity. Managed to charge our phones using the laptop but kept them on the “airplane” mode since there was no connectivity and we wanted to preserve the charge. Finally on Dec 5th, water receded down to just wetting our feet and we went to our aunt’s place nearby that had electricity and connectivity. Over the next ten days, we realised that the damage due to the floods was unprecedented and really massive :(. Part of the damage was the loss of our car, the Skoda Yeti as well. We met with the senior technicians and the head of service at Gurudev motors and they told us that the Yeti was irretrievable and we just had to let it go.

On Friday, we have completed the process with the Insurance company and hopefully we will get the insurance money soon.

So the ShikshaDaan Yatra had to take a unscheduled forced break :). We also need to buy a different car and then continue our Yatra. For now, we will try and cover 3 or 4 districts that are nearby, from Chennai and then return to Hyderabad to see if we can cover a few districts in Telangana and Andhra. One of the risks we had highlighted as we started the Yatra was natural disasters and well, it did come true with the Chennai floods.

Our commitment to the Yatra stays and we should soon be on the road again !

Read about the Chennai floods experience on these links –

The Chennai Rains – Day 1&2

Dec 3 and 4 – Days 3&4 of #theChennairains