“ A walk among debris…”

On the New Year’s Eve, while the bottles of Champaign were uncorked and the skies were illuminated with firecrackers everywhere, our bus, carrying 42 people was heading towards Nagipattanam, the district which one of the most unfortunate prey of the Tsunami. I am sure all of us had similar colors of thoughts at that point of time.."Let the upcoming year be devoid of any of such painful disasters…”
Traversing about 500 KMs from Bangalore, as we were nearing Nagipattanam, the signs of the catastrophe became more and more obvious. Army men on the signals, sand on the road, bleaching powder sprinkled on the pavements and strong odors of chlorine mixed with that of decomposed organics. We could foresee the scenario that we would be encountering in the next 2 days.

Lots of NGO's have got involved in the sanitation and rehabilitation activities; but the most prominent one we observed was the RSS. They were offering all assistance to the volunteers coming down which included free vaccination against infections, supplies of masks and gloves, food and lodging facilities. All the volunteers must be vaccinated and should be equipped with masks and gloves before going to the 'fields' as they call the damaged areas. Our batch was then assigned a small coastal village "Akkaraipettai" having fishermen as majority of its population. Small houses, mainly built with bricks and coconut leaves were situated next to the beach. The fishermen here were quite well to do as they were into very fruitful prawns farming and the village was quite self sufficient. As we entered the market road (or should I say the 'ex'-market road) the hangover of Christmas celebration was clearly visible. Dangling of the broken lanterns, torn ribbons was making the crashed edifices look even more aweful.Along both shores of the road were lined up series of debris half wet half burnt. Debris was all that was leftover in Akkaraipettai. Daily used Commodities, planks, clothing and household goods were scattered all over. Smashed Vehicles lied upside down and were getting rusted by the salt waters. Bulky catamarans which were anchored right into the sea were carried right into the town by the gushing waves. As per the villagers the tsunami waves leapt almost till 45-60 feet, taller than any building in the town. The waves were full of underwater minerals which were quite poisonous. Even those who could swim and get there way through could not fight the chemical composition of the swigs of venom.

The monstrous waves had gulped the entire existence of the town within a few seconds, on that 'doomsday’. As a perfect package of catastrophes, short circuits had followed the Tsunami attacks. A bridge joining two towns across the bay was completely collapsed as if made up of thermocol, burried countless human beings underneath its mammoth blocks. We trudged wearily through the devastated human households, as numb as any Insomniac and heartbroken. It took us few hours to accept what we just saw wasn't a horror movie but a naked truth. To avid emotional outbursts of our own, we busied ourselves with distribution, cleaning and other works..




The most tedious and urgent task was to dispose of the corpses getting degraded and spreading infectious odors across air. Thousands of bodies were cremated without identification in bulk and the remaining are under disposal as and when and where they are found. The count of casualties is so high that still the notifications of dead bodies are being received from the villagers. We assisted the RSS volunteers undertaking this job rigorously. Owners of houses, who survived somehow, silently watched with misty eyes the remains of their houses getting bulldozed. Appeared from the debris either bodies of their loved one's or the tatters of their sweet homes. Their tranquility was pregnant with their tale of agony. The survivors are shifted in relief camps established in schools, temples, mosques and kirks. There has been incessant supply of necessary and unnecessary goods from all over the world, thereby making categorization and distribution of those goods a massive task. Many of the goods like blankets and clothing are in so much excess that piles of garments are thrown in the courtyards of houses. The states of the donated clothing were such that seemingly they were 'disposed off' into the 'donation drives'! The villagers complained that they were not beggars to accept such materials and sometimes even react violently. It wasn't tough for us to fathom their mindset when receiving filthy stuff only because their own belongings were whisked away by destiny.
To add to their peril the "paparazzi" from all across the world goof around and sympathies and ask questions and buzz off. They get great cover stories here to depict the peculiar "hungry and poor India" in their dreams!
What we could do in those two days was not even a drop in ocean. There's mammoth rehabilitation work up front. Abysmal funds and efforts are needed to get these villages back on the map. It’s these hard times when the humanity otherwise relinquished, reincarnates like phoenix. The true 'humans' serving their unknown brothers and sisters wholeheartedly are the angels indeed reinforcing the hope to 'live'. Contribution of necessary goods, monetary help or time and effort…anything and everything is needed. If not any of these, heartfelt prayers are requested. That walk among the debris had triggered whirlpools in my mind about credibility of science, existence of so called savior Almighty, and death and life and what not! Not that I got answers for any of these questions or my life is transformed thoroughly; but the next time I am on verge of cribbing about peeling paint in my house or my meal, less hot; I would truly think again to thank the Lord for retaining that roof over my head and putting that meal on my table…

Pradnya Joshi
7 Jan 2005