Life - Different Strokes

Life is full of different strokes. As on 31st Dec 2004 while some people were busy making plans for celebrating the new year's eve, some others were still not able to come out of the shock caused by the nature's fury. For some it was a time to make new resolutions which will break with the sunrise of New Year, for some it was a time to make a resolution which will remain with them forever.
I was one of the 42 people who started their journey towards Nagapattinam, a tsunami affected area in Tamilnadu (India), on 31st Dec 2004. For most of us including me, it was the first time to go on such journey and for this kind of task. After reaching there on Saturday afternoon sometime, we all directly wanted to go to field and start some work.
While on the way to the affected area (a village called Akkaraipettai), we saw the destruction and devastation caused by tsunami. Boats were smashed all over the place (on the streets, over the trees, on the raiway tracks, over the houses), destroyed houses which used be homes for many of the deceased and survivors and devastated people. At the place where the field work of cleaning of rubble and dead bodies was going on, it was a scene which made us realize the grandeaur of the destruction and devastation caused by tsunami. Dead bodies were being recovered on regular basis and being burnt, no one knew whose body it was. In one such scenario, there was a lady sitting with her daughter in front of her house watching the earth mover cleaning up the rubble of her house. A body was recovered from the rubble, which was way beyond recognizable state. The body was burnt in front of her, but nor she came forward to see who it was neither she had any tears in her eyes. She cannot be mistaken for being cold hearted. After seeing so many dead bodies and the devastation, anyone would become numb.
On Second day i.e on the very first day of 2005, we divided ourselves in various teams. One team went to the field for cleaning up, one went to general hospital for cleaning it up, another one ventured with medical personnel and other two teams went for distribution of relief material. Everyone has an experience which was completely different than any other experience so far in life. I was in the team that went to the field for cleaning the debris and recovering the dead bodies. When we reached the place, Govt authorities were already at work with earth movers moving the debris and recovering the bodies. It was good to see the govt acting, though much more effort is still required because of the magnitude of the destruction. The rubble is still lying on quite a few places and so are the bodies under it. It'll take a lot of effort to clean it up quickly to start the rehabilitation process as soon as possible.
Some of the team members got to do the survey of villages for getting the actual count of the situation and requirements. The team that went with Medicos got to visit the villages where mostly farmers were living. After the tsunami all of their paddy fields are filled with salt. What does it mean? It means it'll take another 3-5yrs at the least to grow a crop in these fields. Most of these farmers do not have any other means of livelihood. They don't even have skills to look for any other livelihood. Govt will have to give it a hard thought in the rehab process for these people. Fishermen can still go to sea after getting the new boats or repairing the damaged ones, but these people will need help from Govt and from people who are well off. The sad part is no help has reached to these villages as these are not well connected. There are lot of other such villages which need immediate attention as no aid or very little aid has reached to the survivors of these villages.
It was good to see that now a coordinated effort from various NGOs and Govt. is being put to bring back the life to normal in all the affected areas, though still there are lot of areas where Govt. is yet to reach. This is not a task that is going to be completed in a month, it's going to take months may be years.
Based on the surveys done by various NGOs and the experiences of my team members (who were comfortable in tamil), people want to get back to their livelihood as soon as possible. As most of these people are fishermen, they were earning good enough to have all the amenities of life, if not luxaries. They are not accustomed to spread their hands for food, clothes or for anything as a matter of fact. This can be seen while going through the streets of nagapattinam as one can see the piles of old clothes lying outside. These people say that if you want to give us something, then give those things which you yourself can use and not the ones which are useless for you.
We as a team do not intend to think that we have done our bit to the people.We have decided to keep working towards giving and arranging as much help as we all possibly could. We have collated the information gathered and passed it on to the people who wanted it for further aid and relief work. We as a group have made a decision that our responsibility doesn't end with just one visit, but we will have to keep working towards the cause that we have taken up. In this process we'll be mobilising the people to understand the gravity of situation and the kind of effort needed to restore the normalcy an dignity of the people who are affected. In this process we'll be seeing that whatever effort we are putting are reaching to the affected people and are not getting lost in between. To ensure it we'll be working with/for Sneham(A social service group within Infosys) which has identified the NGOs who are actually working for the people out there, we'll also be visiting the places periodically to see the progress of our efforts and efforts made by these organizations.We, as corporate citizens, are bound by constraints that restrict our full-time legwork to weekends. The least we can do in such a situation is to fund organizations that have/can manage the manpower to do it and which are actually working for the really affected people.
We as a responsible human beings need to understand that just by giving money or stuff doesn't aleviate us from our responsibility. We need to follow up as what we are donating with good intention is actually reaching to the people in need and not getting lost in between. Also we need to think beyond the immediate requirements which are required during the relief work. Relief work will be over in a week or so, but the huge task of rehabilitaion is remaining. Though Govt. has the primary responsibility for it, but we should not just leave it on the Govt. As the most important task during rehabilitation will be providing the means of livelihood to the affected people.
The talks our team had with the fishermen out there in nagapattinam brought out a unanimous demand that they need boats, fishing nets, catamarans etc. to go back to sea and earn their livelihood and dignity as soon as possible. Though the aid organisations will do whatever they can, but the only way for these fisherman to live and survive is to go back to sea again. One boat which have a good engine and can take 10 fishermen to sea would cost approx 15 lacs including the fishing nets.
Also we should not forget the children who are now all on their own because of this disaster. We need to give a serious thought to their future. We need to come forward to help these children by providing them the help they need to go back to school, eat good food and a place to live to bring them back into the mainstream world, so that in future they could go out and live their life in a good way.
There is a need of counselling as well to the survivors, as after loosing everything getting back to normal life is very hard. These conditions fill a person with despair, anger and fear. Good counselling is needed for these people, especially to the women.
It's my appeal to all the people who read it that we all should realize our responsibility and try to extend a hand of help to these people who actually need help from their fellow human beings in such hard times. As I said earlier while sending help in any mode, one must be very careful about the means chosen to make sure that your efforts reach to the people who are actually affected. One must take this responsibility as putting filters at grass root level is very difficult.

Below are the contacts of some of the Organisations, which are working in the affected areas:

• Isha Foundation(www.ishafoundation.com, headoffice@ruralrejuvenation.org)
• AID INDIA (0422 2319655 / 2319654, Charles 98655 36630, Dr.SasiKumar 94430 57560, Dr.Gomathi 94433 57564)
• SOS Chief Doctor and Liaison Officer Rajendra, General Hospital, Nagappatinam (98424 25056, 94433 72218, 04365 309104).