It took 944 mm of rain and misery in Mumbai to bring Hindus and Muslims closer together.

On 26th July, Mumbai saw unprecedented downpour, three days of wading in muck and a week of bungling had stunned Mumbai into a stoic silence.

Ordinary citizens dug into their moral reserves and did what the government should have been doing - walking miles to help people, taking strangers into their homes, starting relief kitchens at street corners. Misery acted like glue and held the city together. The plagues of theft, violence and disorder that visit other cities in distress, never touched Mumbai.

When it matters most, both Hindus and Muslims build many bridges to come near. There are several stories of Hindus helping Muslims and Muslims going out of the way to rescue Hindus. We take just two such stories to show the existing harmony between the two communities.

A frail Hindu schoolteacher, fighting falling rocks and rising water, saves 15 Muslim neighbours, inspires others during the Saki Naka landslide. You might call Premlata Rai ordinary: a frail, mild schoolteacher, who, her mother says, faints at the sight of blood. Her extraordinary moment came on July 26, when a hillock over a chawl in Saki Naka wilted under Mumbai’s worst rains ever. In less than 15 minutes, Rai (23), a teacher with the Universal Education Scheme, pulled out three families—mostly children—trapped in the calamitous landslide.

‘‘Had Premlata not been there, we would have died,’’ says an overwhelmed Rafia Khatun. Rai not only saved Khatun and her eight children, but nursed and fed them. Rai was back from work at 3 pm in pouring rain when the hill collapsed—excavators are trying now to dig out more than 100 still buried.

The rubble of the landslide began piling up near her neighbours’ shanties at the foot of the hill, the rainwater flooding down the hill-top had risen waist-deep in the chawl and most residents were napping. Rai first heard cries for help from the children of neighbour Suryabali Pal— with his ailing wife in hospital,whose children, aged five and seven and a cousin, had locked themselves in a room. Wading through rising water, Rai pushed open the door and pulled the children out. She stormed the shanty of hardware-store owner Aijaz Ahmad, whose wife Sabikunnissa lay bleeding.

Rai rescued her and her three children, aged six, three, and one. Next in line was Khatun, with eight children, half-buried in the debris of the shanty’s collapsed wall. Rai moved boulders aside and scrabbled a hole, pulling out eight children one by one: Nagma (6) had fractured legs, three others were bruised. Rai’s heroics inspired others. Soon, locals helped 50 more escape.

In the unwritten, unseen social code that governs Mumbai’s outer suburbs, Muslims are banned from settling in the townships around the station. It took 944 mm of rain and some simple concessions of identity to break down long years of ignoring each other.

And so it was that Abdul Rauf Lala, his friends and associates from Mumbra, a town that had received relief from Mumbai, realised that Hindu Diva was desperate and without help. Nestled between Mumbra and Dombivli, the neglected suburb of Diva remained under water for three days. After having been let down by community leaders and politicians, the flood-stricken residents saw a group of 10 Muslim youth from Mumbra, lugging sacks of food grains, wading through two km of waterlogged tracks to reach their Hindu neighbours. “They did not just deliver the stocks. These Muslim brothers, especially Mohammed bhai, cooked food for us and ensured that we got potable drinking water which was brought from Mumbra,” said Sopan Patil, a social worker who has spent 47 years of his life in Diva.

Patil and others who received the aid couldn’t stop praising their benefactors for setting such a fine example of communal harmony. “Mumbra has always been considered a sensitive Muslim pocket by the Thane police. But in times of crisis, these residents readily came to our rescue,” said Patil, who is from the Agri community which is predominant in Diva. ‘‘For five days we distributed 300 packets of khichdi every day,’’ said Rauf Lala. Diva and Mumbra actually have many shared experiences. Though religion set them apart, locals in Diva now recall how eight to 10 Muslim men, walking along the railway tracks, arrived in Diva from Mumbra on July 27, bearing polythene bags of food. Hunger and desperation drew locals to the relief, but the suspicion remained. Contractor Charan Patil talks about how a few flood-affected people refused to accept food being handed to them by volunteers sporting skull caps. ‘‘They then shoved their caps into their pockets and continued carrying out relief work,’’ said Patil.

‘‘But still,’’ adds Father Brahma, ‘‘many didn’t take the relief.’’ Last week, the Memon community came with 100 sacks of rice and 50 sacks of dal. “One coupon was given to every family that came to take food packets,’’ said building supervisor Prashant Gulekar (29). That way, they ensured that food was distributed to all.

For the Muslims, it was an opportunity to narrow the gap. ‘‘The scriptures say one is not a Muslim if one hasn’t shared food with one’s neighbours,’’ said Lala. ‘‘Besides, we want to erase the notion that Muslims are uneducated terrorists.’’

The writer can be reached at mhl@rediffmail.com

Special Report