Dipti drying her books. Picture by Swarup Mondal

Bakhrabad, June 20: Among wet paddy, wheat and clothes, schoolbooks were set to dry as the sun came out here in West Midnapore today.

Eleven-year-old Anil Ghosh and his sister Dipti had managed to salvage their schoolbags when they fled their flooded home in blinding rain on Tuesday night.

They are now housed in a rice mill opposite the Bakhrabad station, about 40km from Kharagpur.

Dilip Ghosh, 42 and his wife Malati, 35, had left home minutes before their house in Ugrasanda village collapsed. They had waded through waist-deep water for about a kilometre to reach the station, 170km from Calcutta.

“When we were busy saving whatever household items we could lay our hands on, our children were desperate to take their schoolbags to a safer place,” said Malati.

The parents carried 25kg of rice, a few clothes, four steel glasses and three plates to the shelter. The children carried all their books.

When Anil and Dipti were laying the books on a concrete slab today, the elders were in front of the Narayangarh block office, protesting against insufficient relief.

“My father had studied only up to Class VIII because of poverty. But he wants us to go further,” said Anil, who is in Class V. Dipti is in Class IV.

“My teachers say I must study everyday, whether it rains or not,” Anil added.

Dipti, too, wants “a job” after completing education. “I don’t want to be like my mother,” she said as mother Malati looked on.

Around 200 houses in Narayangarh block are still submerged.