Sindya Narayanaswamy (CS’02), currently in India participating in a yearlong public service program called Indicorps, was part of a team that spent four days (Jan. 9 - Jan. 12, 2005) in the tsunami ravaged coastal region of Tamil Nadu interacting with villagers, particularly women and children. Arriving in Tamil Nadu less than a month after the tsunami, she and her team witnessed the aftermath of the destruction as well as the extraordinary compassion from people around the world.
As a result of the initial assessment trip, Dream a Dream has committed to a six-month “play therapy” initiative with the children of Pattinacherry. Narayanaswamy has since returned to the affected areas to do additional work. Before traveling to India, Narayanaswamy was a patent examiner for the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office in Arlington, Va.
The following is a personal account of her journey. Her story first appeared in Khabar Magazine (www.khabar.com).
Mission
We left Bangalore around 6 a.m. on the 9th and reached Pondicherry at about 1:30 that afternoon. Pondicherry itself was left untouched by the tsunami (which rose 24 feet above normal tide), because of its 270-year-old rock barrier that served as protection from the waves.
For a moment, it was easy for me to forget the nature of my visit – but the splashing of the waves against the rocks behind me served as a quick reminder.
Upon arriving in Pondicherry, we were directed by AID-India to a nearby town called Killai that had several relief shelters for affected fishing villages including M.G.R. Thittu and Muzhukkuthurai.
Killai
Killai was 45 kilometers from Pondicherry, but due to the unpaved and extremely bumpy dirt roads, it took us over two hours to reach. In Killai, we visited RSS Kalyana Mandap – a wedding hall turned relief shelter for M.G.R. Thittu. In disorganized fashion, people were all around the hall and the stage. Many of the children were wandering about, but most of the adults were either lying down or sitting. Many had lost, vacant, tired looks in their eyes. The mandap was approximately half the size of a typical high school auditorium – and temporary home to approximately 700 people.
We chatted with some young boys. I asked them how they were spending their days. They told me that some of the volunteers were playing cricket and kabbadi (a traditional Indian game that involves ‘tagging’ people while saying ‘kabbadi’) with them. One volunteer told us they were organizing a kabbadi tournament for the children.
After about an hour we headed back to Pondicherry. The next morning, our jeep, one person heavier, (we bumped into an American AID-India volunteer by the name of Brad from New Mexico and offered him a ride) made its way back to RSS Kalyana Mandap. At RSS, a 14-year-old boy named Ramesh was assigned to us to show us around his fishing village, Muzhukkuthurai. Ramesh, though young, and affected himself, had a strong desire to help out.
Muzhukkuthurai was virtually abandoned; most of the villagers were in the relief center in Killai. A few villagers were wandering around the village, sitting in what remained of their homes and attempting to clean or cook a meal. Some talked to us, but many seemed tired and disinterested. Some had eyes that emitted mockery, as if to ask, “Who are you, to come and stare at us? Do you think you can do anything by wandering about like this?”
Ramesh pointed at the ground beneath my feet. “That used to be a house,” he said, shivering. Indeed, I was standing on a slab of concrete that was all that remained of a small but comfortable two-bedroom house. “And there,” Ramesh pointed, “was an enormous coconut tree. See, it has all fallen.”
The devastation was evident to me, but devastation is only truly comprehensible to those who knew a place before it was damaged. What Ramesh was saying, I was able to understand, but not really and truly sympathize with.
I tried to imagine my neighborhood in Atlanta disappearing overnight. I imagined my house being filled with water, and myself running in neck deep water with children in my arms trying to save my last remaining possessions – myself and my family. I shivered as Ramesh had and turned away.
Karaikal
The next day, we made our way a little further south to Karaikal, where we met a volunteer named Mr. Balraj, a simple and kind schoolteacher who had dedicated his time to the relief efforts. In the month after the tsunami, he had sent his wife and child to his relatives, and taken leave from his job so that he could serve the affected people – delivering supplies, overseeing construction and simply serve as a pillar of support.
Balraj explained that in Pattinacherry, many children had died, leaving many women and children in distressed states. The local primary school in the village for children under 10 had dropped in strength from 196 to 140 post-tsunami. Upon arriving in Pattinacherry, the distress was apparent. Many children were quiet; some did not speak at all. Others spoke, but a scared, shakiness persisted in their voices.
One boy, about 13 years old, had lost his mother and sister. His sorrow was fresh, for he had just performed the traditional 14th day ceremony done two weeks after a loved one passes away. As per tradition, his head was shaved. His eyes were red. He had been crying a lot. One of my team members turned a video camera towards his face but he neither looked up nor turned away. Unlike Ramesh, he was not anxious to talk. What could he say? What use were we to him? His mother and sister, and 1/4th of his village had disappeared in an instant.
I spent a great deal of time talking to the women of Pattinacherry. “Why,” one woman asked me, “must we face this cruelty of half of us being left alive, while the other half have died?” Another woman looked me in the eye, “They have given us all plates,” she laughed bitterly, “so now we can go around begging. Do you think food and clothes will help, with all these lives gone? Our pride was in our families, our homes, our lives. How will you ever get that back for us?”
The group of five or so women looked at me, one with a sleeping child in her hand. Their bodies exhausted, their eyes deep set in sorrow, full of hopelessness. Without any answers to give, tears began to well up in my own eyes. Finally, with nothing left to say, I told them that they must be brave for the sake of their children. The women agreed, for left with feelings of such despair and hopelessness, they had settled on the fact that they must stay strong– if only for their children.
A group of young men spoke of how they had just bought sets of cricket gear all the way from Chennai. “But now, our fields have been swallowed by the water,” they said, explaining that their fields had been on the shoreline, which post-tsunami, had changed and come closer to the land.
One young woman in particular, chatted with me freely. She was about my height, and approximately my age (24). She was wearing a plain, peacock blue sari, had a beautiful figure, and a kind smile with perfect, straight white teeth. I asked her if she was married and she replied, “Yes, it’s been four years.” Then raising her hand slightly, she showed me two fingers. Still smiling, she said, “My husband has two wives. He lives with another woman somewhere else; apparently he did not like me. I have been living with my older brother all this time, but now that he is unemployed, I do not know what will become of me.”
Her smile unwavering, she looked at me and said, “Look at our situation, what can you say?” Not knowing what to say, I looked at her and told her everything would be okay. “After all,” I said, “you are still smiling.”
To that, she replied, as long as you are here, I feel that I can release my troubles, somehow ease my burden. Another’s company helps you forget your own sorrows, however temporarily. How important it is for people to simply have the comfort of company around when tragedy strikes!
The Future
In every village that I went to, I noticed that both the Tamil Nadu government and involved NGOs are doing tremendous work in providing adequate relief materials to affected villagers. There is enough food and water coming in. Temporary shelters are in place, and the government is doing an admirable job in facilitating the construction of permanent housing and working towards livelihood restoration. Every villager I met and spoke to had received their monetary and goods allowances from the government – truly an amazing feat here in India, particularly in the rural areas.
But the people also need a human touch. I hope that in the months to come sufficient energy is put forth in counseling the affected men, women and children. Our team assessment indicated that there was indeed a need for work to be done with children, and if we garner the proper resources and manpower, we will go back to work with the village children.
The people also need temporary occupations, whether in the form of hobbies or alternative livelihoods. Boredom is maddening, especially for people who had such full, active lives. “We don’t like sitting still, we are happy when we are doing work,” one village woman said.
“We were just starting to do well in life,” one fisherman in Pattinacherry told me before I left. “We have been able to send our children to schools in town, buy TVs and VCD players. Now, the water scares us, the sound echoes through our ears, through our bodies. But fishing is the only life we know. We need our boats, we need to go back—we must.”
It was true, that the water had brought the fisher folk wealth. But it was also true that the water had brought them unforgettable and horrific tragedy.
I was reminded of Kahlil Gibran’s poetry in The Prophet. “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked…when you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy…I say unto you, they are inseparable…Verily you are suspended like scales between your joy and your sorrow.”
And so it is with fishermen and water. The water, which was so peaceful, so beautiful, was the same water which viciously killed so many, slashing houses, trees and lives in one swift blow. But the fishermen and women know they will continue to live and work. The water that they now fear they once loved, and will learn to love again. May they be aided in this by the energy and compassion of humankind, all the world over.
Related Links:
Dream a Dream
Indicorps
