Guwahati: When floodwaters burst into his home, 11-year-old shuttler Satyaki Dorian Duarah had only minutes to react. He grabbed two packets of biscuits and three bottles of water and scrambled with his family to the unfinished upper floor.The provisions were meagre, but they kept four people going for two days as flash floods swallowed the ground floor of their home in Hulang Katoni village in Assam’s Sivasagar district.In the panic, however, Satyaki left behind the one possession closest to his heart — his badminton kit. “I had put my badminton kit on the bed. But later, when the water reduced, we found the racket and kit all damaged by mud and silt,” Satyaki said.
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An Under-11 national-level badminton player, Satyaki also lost the certificates documenting his achievements. They were inside an almirah along with the family’s land records and educational certificates when muddy water surged through the house.Amid this loss, Satyaki took solace in the fact that he could save his family.The deluge struck between 6 pm and 7 pm on Sunday, following a massive rush of water from the hills of neighbouring Nagaland. It remains unclear whether the surge was caused by a cloudburst or intense rainfall, but its speed caught residents of the usually flood-free locality completely off guard.“When floodwaters started entering our courtyard, we were surprised because neither I nor my nearly 78-year-old mother had ever seen floods in our locality,” Satyaki’s father, Gautam Duarah, 47, recalled.The water entered the backyard around 6 pm. It rose from ankle-deep to knee-deep within minutes, then climbed to the waist before engulfing the entire ground floor.The family initially believed the water would stop at knee level and begin receding. By the time they realised otherwise, escape was impossible.Gautam, his wife, his 78-year-old mother and Satyaki climbed to the unfinished upper floor. Below them, the current tore through their home and submerged belongings accumulated over a lifetime.Above, the family depended on what Satyaki had managed to carry.“For two days, we survived on the two packets of biscuits and the three water bottles that my boy took above. After we finished the water in the bottles we started drinking rainwater,” said Duarah, whose family stayed on the upper floor on Monday and Tuesday.As the water receded, the scale of the loss emerged. Silt and mud covered the house. The boy’s racket and kit were ruined, and the family’s crucial papers were soaked.“Our land documents, educational certificates and sports certificates of our boy, all those that were kept in the almirah, got submerged,” Gautam said.Relatives finally reached the village on a tractor on Wednesday and took Satyaki to Sivasagar town. His parents and grandmother remained at the damaged home, trying to recover whatever they could.The flood destroyed the young player’s equipment and the records of his fledgling badminton journey, but its deepest impact is evident in his calls home. Away from his parents, Satyaki remains fearful that another torrent could strike without warning.“One of you please stay at the top of the house and keep watching whether flash flood has again rolled down,” Satyaki tells his parents whenever he calls.
