Bengaluru after a night of non-stop rain. It looked as if the city was drowning.
As my cameraperson Govind and I set out to cover the story, we realised we were going nowhere in a hurry - much like commuters across the city. The first 3 km took us one and a half hours to cover as we crawled along the BTM Ring Road in the direction of Hosur Road - reporting from the jam itself.
We looked enviously at pedestrians who easily overtook us. Their rate of progress was much faster than ours.
On the way, we saw a beautiful tree had collapsed after the rain. Its roots were surrounded by cement - always a bad idea for the stability of trees.
I remember reading how in Bangkok, notorious for its jams, people would eat meals and even carry little portable toilets for their endless commutes.
Is that our future too?
We finally got out of the car on that same Ring Road into what seemed to be a running river. One side was covered with a rushing stream. And something I had never seen before in my life: people fishing on the streets of the city. BTM Ring Road had turned into a river. Complete with fish. We saw a fish caught in a helmet, some in the plastic boxes used to store milk packets - and after a while, people even brought out entire nets.
The mayor, Manjunath Reddy visited - as did Ramalinga Reddy - the minister who represents the BTM constituency. They both said that 800 crores had been set aside for storm water drains. But that it had not all been spent - as it had come too late for work to be done before this monsoon.
There were more surprises in store. As I was doing a live report at 7.30, there was a commotion behind the camera. A snake, a large one, had been washed up by the water.
Govind turned the camera on the snake, I began to talk about it - even as I was calling to the people not to kill it. Fortunately they didn't - sweeping it back into the water from which it had emerged.
A road river, fishing on a ring road and an unexpected snake guest during a live report. A day I won't forget in a hurry.
(Maya Sharma is NDTV's Resident Editor in Bengaluru)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.