Torrential rains, flooded rivers, overflowing dams, landslides, broken bridges, collapsing buildings, humans and animals running for shelter, rescue operations, boats, volunteers, humanity… are the pictures that will never vanish from the minds and hearts of thousands living today, in particular, the affected people of Kerala and parts of Karnataka. Memories will never fade away. Amidst this national natural disaster, two kinds of people affect our conscience: i) the rescuing and sympathising people, ii) the hard-cores who blame the disaster as divine retribution. Where do we stand? Are we celebrating the humanity or desecrating it?
My eyes become numb, body shivers, teeth protest the tongue to utter a word of consolation, and hands shut my ears upon hearing and seeing those gory pictures of the devastation. My feet tremble and knees fall to the ground in pleading my God, “please Lord, stop this nature’s fury. They are your children. Protect them.” Why not? Any sensible human being will melt away at the first sight and fold the hands in prayer and raise the hands to help the victims.
The Rescue and Rescuers
What is being witnessed at the disaster, the first and foremost, is as Narayana Guru once said about the humanity, “Oru jāti, oru dharmam, oru matam,” “One caste, one religion and one faith.” Religion, caste, creed, rich and poor is the human creation. Humanity is ONE. Humanity is the Religion. Humanity is the FAITH. Humanity is the CREED. Humanity is the CASTE. Humanity has no colour, economy and polity. All are children of ONE Supreme Being. When people were in trouble, the people of Kerala did not see their wealth, creed and caste. But saw them as ‘Human Being,’ and treated them with love and care as children of one family. Hundreds of rehabilitation camps and thousands of volunteers are catering to the needs of lakhs of people living there as One Family, ‘Vasudaiva Kutumbakam.’
Secondly, people did not indulge in polity (though a couple of audios and videos were circulated with vested motives by some idiosyncratic people). Political ideologies were crushed and washed away, and humanity was placed as their ideology. Yes. I am proud to say this. We have witnessed IAS officers, even the ministers of higher rank, government officials were the part of rescue team, shouldering and lending their hand, walking in the knee-deep murk, pulling and pushing boats, and even making themselves as stepping stone to board the boats in water inundated places as and when and where it needed. Let’s celebrate this humanity, stretching our chest and bowing down our heads in respect.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the fisherman community of Kerala needs a loud cheer and a pat on their back for their part in the rescue operation. It is unimaginable, to see fishing boats on the hilly areas, on the inundated streets and towns, far away from the sea. To tell the fact, these fishermen themselves have lost their houses, property, land and people in several occasions of nature’s fury and even this time also. And it is the same fishermen who lent their boats, their daily bread and ‘their everything’ to rescue their fellow brethren.
They had no second thought whether the boats will be returned safe and sound, or whether their future will be secure if not returned or with damaged and broken. India Today thus reports, “Fishermen from across the state have come together to the rescue of those in need. The fishing community put together 100 boats that they take to sea, as soon as they heard that there was a shortage of boats for rescue operations.” What a gesture! What a celebration of ‘being human.’ No words to express for their generosity.
We can never forget the people from across the country responding to the need of the hour. Starting from the individuals both young and old, states and artisans, and even the international body are ready to aid and ease the situation, by willingly donating whatever they could both in cash and kind. An incident of a little kid from Tamil Nadu is heart filling. Ethirajan Srinivasan tweeted a local newspaper cutting translating the headline. He said, “Kid, Anupriya from Vizhuppuram, TN, donates Rs 9,000, her 4 years Piggy Bank savings, that she saved to buy a bicycle, towards #KeralaFloodRelief.” And the Hero Cycle company replied for her kind gesture, “Dear Anupriya, We appreciate your gesture to support humanity in the hour of need. You would get a brand new cycle from us. Please DM your address or contact us at customer@herocycles.com.” Humanity is being celebrated in such people.
Another child, the victim of endosulfan tragedy in Kasaragod district, himself in need of assistance, contributed Rupees 50,000 to CMDRF at the office of Sub Inspector of Police. Let this be an inspiration for all.
The Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, came out in support for the state of Kerala giving an uncompromised statement “The people of Kerala have always been and are still part of our success story in the UAE” and promised much need help. Further, it came out with a committee to help the flood-hit areas. Pope Francis too has appealed the world community to render their help.
Indian Navy, Air and Land forces, NDRF (The National Disaster Response Force) and other rescue teams are doing commendable job putting their life in trouble in rescuing people. At times their heroic gesture crosses beyond our imagination. In one such incident reported, a member of a rescue team became a ladder for the people to climb the airboat is viral on the internet. Shreya Dhoundial, a journalist by profession in her twitter handle posts the video of it with a note, “Putting his back into it. Quite literally. Jaisal KP a fisherman in Vengara puts himself in water so women and children can use his back as a step into the boat. 600 fisherman helping out in #KeralaFloods the unsung heroes. #Salute.” In reply to this someone re-tweets in these words, “True. There r so many men, doing their best in every way, but rarely they are spoken about. But the world is existing yet, bcus [because] of the good people.”
In another incident NDRF personnel, Kanhaiya Kumar from Bihar who was seen running across the Cheruthoni River in Idukki with a child who had to be shifted to hospital with high fever as the bridge was about to be submerged by flood water which was released from the Cheruthoni Dam.
In another incident a navy personnel, Cdr Vijay Verma-321Flight is seen airlifting a heavily pregnant woman and later shifted to a nearby air base where she delivers a boy child within 40 minutes of rescue.
These heroic gestures are only a few glimpses accidentally captured by the cameras. There are hundreds of such incidents have gone unnoticed. They are the real heroes of our country and we must be proud to say that, “S/he is my sister, brother.” Any gallantry award will be insufficient for their great act of humanity.
Hard-cores
“Weeds are obvious if the land is fertile.” True to this, there are several people spreading venom at the goodwill of people. They neither do good nor allow others to do good. Some people of dead conscience think that the flood is God’s punishment for ‘beef eating,’ and others as the wrath of Lord Ayyappa, and still, some feel ‘Christianity’ or ‘communism’ as the root cause. Krish Subramanian with the twitter handle @Krish_018 tweets, “Kerala hindus must stop eating beef. You can’t claim you’re a hindu and eat beef too. Mother nature will payback with interest.” Further, JN Kaushik @JaganNKaushik replying to @sethia_b @SKMittal63 re-tweets, “It seems to be true sir. Lord Ayyappa is angry with the Kerala Govt, as whole country knows that Communist & Congressi Workers had publicly slaughtered an innocent Calf in protest of Beef ban, cooked it publicly & feasted on its cooked beef openly on the road! God wouldn't spare.” There are several others join these people to give communal flavour to the incident. Shouldn’t we call them ‘sick people?” sadly, these such people are highly learned ones. If their logic were to be right, why then the Uttarakhand floods, Latur and Kutch earthquake and other such incidents happened?
Of course, we do know that human beings are responsible to a certain extent for nature’s fury. Untimely monsoons, drought, and at times floods in certain regions are gifts of human greed, faulty developmental project implementations, encroachment, overpopulation, undisciplined lifestyle, overuse of natural resources, etc. By its very nature, water should flow. Dams are never been a natural phenomenon. But, a civilized society needs certain artificial establishments. When the things go artificial, side effects are bound to appear. If the towns and rivers are maintained well, certain disasters can be averted. In many places, hills are disrobed for constructions, river beds are encroached to build houses, the natural flow of water is diverted to suit human habitation. But, certain incidents are ‘kākatālīya’, it just happens for which we have no control. It is neither a wrath of God nor a curse from any divine establishment. Calling it a ‘divine retribution’ is irrational and an utter nonsense.
The Angst
Many affected people are angry at the way to rescue operations are being held. Some are angry at the government, at the NGOs and with people involved in the rescue. This angst, in fact, is obvious from the trauma one is confronted with. It is not possible to reach out to everyone and everywhere when the calamity of such frequency affects the country. There is a limitation for human reach. But they should not worry. Everyone is trying their best in spite of all the odds, whatever the means possible for a better living.
The co-operation of the people of Kerala in every aspect of the rescue operation is commendable. Twitter handle of President of India thus reads, “#PresidentKovind spoke to the Governor and the Chief Minister of Kerala and inquired about the flood situation. He acknowledged the grit and resilience of the people of Kerala in coming together in this trying hour. Assured the people of the state that the entire nation was with them.” Had such deluge were to take place in any other parts of North India causalities would have been ten times greater than Kerala. People of Kerala are co-operative and understanding. Rajiv Tyagi, the former fighter pilot at Indian Air Force, who was at the forefront of rescue and relief operations at Kochi commends the co-operation in his Facebook page. To quote him, “I have been in the centre of activities at Kochi. While there is no doubt the armed forces have been doing a tremendous job and it has to be acknowledged, I would like to bring out the differences I felt in this mission and the ones carried out at Srinagar, Chennai, Uttaranchal and Mumbai. Firstly to the credit of the civil administration, they have also been in the front and have been operating along with the public. Unlike other places where they had hid themselves and were unwilling to show themselves to the public, here they were shoulder to shoulder with all affected people. Secondly, youngsters had on their own taken on the task of organising the efforts. IT companies had given their people off, to work on relief and rescue. These ppl [people] had all sorts of software programmes created, to coordinate the efforts. The place where they were coordinating the efforts were teaming with the youngsters who were bringing in supplies and other essentials as needed. From my flat complex, young ladies had overnight collected over Rs 3 lakhs and were supplying packed food. Thirdly, the fishermen community had on their own transported their boats and were rescuing the stranded. Similarly, others also had formed their own little organisations to rescue the stranded. The population in general did not wait idly for the govt. machinery to begin the actions as in other places. I find tremendous happiness having seen all the groups work together without any sense of religion or caste or other divisions. I had gone to a church with rations and they directed us to a temple as there were more people there. I am sure with such an attitude, in spite of our politicians and what a number of us say, this country has a good future.” That’s why Kerala is ‘God’s own country.’There are several people including the opposition parties expressing their anger against the meagre amount sanctioned (600 crores till today) by the central government as compared to the amount spent on other unnecessary things. However, there are several people and states pouring in their help in whatever way possible. Hope, more help will be sanctioned by the central government in the future.
What Kerala needs today is our helping hand in rebuilding their lives. Many have lost their land, agriculture, livestock, house, property, transport facilities, etc. They have lost their valuable documents. Many have to begin their life from zero. The future is fearsome. But with your and my help, our little sacrifices, our acts of generosity and good will surely will boost their confidence. May we become good Samaritans in the way we can.
Fr. Raju Felix Crasta
My eyes become numb, body shivers, teeth protest the tongue to utter a word of consolation, and hands shut my ears upon hearing and seeing those gory pictures of the devastation. My feet tremble and knees fall to the ground in pleading my God, “please Lord, stop this nature’s fury. They are your children. Protect them.” Why not? Any sensible human being will melt away at the first sight and fold the hands in prayer and raise the hands to help the victims.
The Rescue and Rescuers
What is being witnessed at the disaster, the first and foremost, is as Narayana Guru once said about the humanity, “Oru jāti, oru dharmam, oru matam,” “One caste, one religion and one faith.” Religion, caste, creed, rich and poor is the human creation. Humanity is ONE. Humanity is the Religion. Humanity is the FAITH. Humanity is the CREED. Humanity is the CASTE. Humanity has no colour, economy and polity. All are children of ONE Supreme Being. When people were in trouble, the people of Kerala did not see their wealth, creed and caste. But saw them as ‘Human Being,’ and treated them with love and care as children of one family. Hundreds of rehabilitation camps and thousands of volunteers are catering to the needs of lakhs of people living there as One Family, ‘Vasudaiva Kutumbakam.’
Secondly, people did not indulge in polity (though a couple of audios and videos were circulated with vested motives by some idiosyncratic people). Political ideologies were crushed and washed away, and humanity was placed as their ideology. Yes. I am proud to say this. We have witnessed IAS officers, even the ministers of higher rank, government officials were the part of rescue team, shouldering and lending their hand, walking in the knee-deep murk, pulling and pushing boats, and even making themselves as stepping stone to board the boats in water inundated places as and when and where it needed. Let’s celebrate this humanity, stretching our chest and bowing down our heads in respect.
 |
| Thomas Isaac, Finance Minister of Kerala |
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| Ernakulam District Collector Rajamanickam An IAS officer |
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| Ramesh Chennithala, Leader of Opposition |
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| Matthew Thomas, water resource minister |
Thirdly, and most importantly, the fisherman community of Kerala needs a loud cheer and a pat on their back for their part in the rescue operation. It is unimaginable, to see fishing boats on the hilly areas, on the inundated streets and towns, far away from the sea. To tell the fact, these fishermen themselves have lost their houses, property, land and people in several occasions of nature’s fury and even this time also. And it is the same fishermen who lent their boats, their daily bread and ‘their everything’ to rescue their fellow brethren.
They had no second thought whether the boats will be returned safe and sound, or whether their future will be secure if not returned or with damaged and broken. India Today thus reports, “Fishermen from across the state have come together to the rescue of those in need. The fishing community put together 100 boats that they take to sea, as soon as they heard that there was a shortage of boats for rescue operations.” What a gesture! What a celebration of ‘being human.’ No words to express for their generosity.
We can never forget the people from across the country responding to the need of the hour. Starting from the individuals both young and old, states and artisans, and even the international body are ready to aid and ease the situation, by willingly donating whatever they could both in cash and kind. An incident of a little kid from Tamil Nadu is heart filling. Ethirajan Srinivasan tweeted a local newspaper cutting translating the headline. He said, “Kid, Anupriya from Vizhuppuram, TN, donates Rs 9,000, her 4 years Piggy Bank savings, that she saved to buy a bicycle, towards #KeralaFloodRelief.” And the Hero Cycle company replied for her kind gesture, “Dear Anupriya, We appreciate your gesture to support humanity in the hour of need. You would get a brand new cycle from us. Please DM your address or contact us at customer@herocycles.com.” Humanity is being celebrated in such people.
Another child, the victim of endosulfan tragedy in Kasaragod district, himself in need of assistance, contributed Rupees 50,000 to CMDRF at the office of Sub Inspector of Police. Let this be an inspiration for all.
 |
| A small acknowledgement of his endeavour. |
The Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, came out in support for the state of Kerala giving an uncompromised statement “The people of Kerala have always been and are still part of our success story in the UAE” and promised much need help. Further, it came out with a committee to help the flood-hit areas. Pope Francis too has appealed the world community to render their help.
Indian Navy, Air and Land forces, NDRF (The National Disaster Response Force) and other rescue teams are doing commendable job putting their life in trouble in rescuing people. At times their heroic gesture crosses beyond our imagination. In one such incident reported, a member of a rescue team became a ladder for the people to climb the airboat is viral on the internet. Shreya Dhoundial, a journalist by profession in her twitter handle posts the video of it with a note, “Putting his back into it. Quite literally. Jaisal KP a fisherman in Vengara puts himself in water so women and children can use his back as a step into the boat. 600 fisherman helping out in #KeralaFloods the unsung heroes. #Salute.” In reply to this someone re-tweets in these words, “True. There r so many men, doing their best in every way, but rarely they are spoken about. But the world is existing yet, bcus [because] of the good people.”
In another incident a navy personnel, Cdr Vijay Verma-321Flight is seen airlifting a heavily pregnant woman and later shifted to a nearby air base where she delivers a boy child within 40 minutes of rescue.
These heroic gestures are only a few glimpses accidentally captured by the cameras. There are hundreds of such incidents have gone unnoticed. They are the real heroes of our country and we must be proud to say that, “S/he is my sister, brother.” Any gallantry award will be insufficient for their great act of humanity.
Hard-cores
“Weeds are obvious if the land is fertile.” True to this, there are several people spreading venom at the goodwill of people. They neither do good nor allow others to do good. Some people of dead conscience think that the flood is God’s punishment for ‘beef eating,’ and others as the wrath of Lord Ayyappa, and still, some feel ‘Christianity’ or ‘communism’ as the root cause. Krish Subramanian with the twitter handle @Krish_018 tweets, “Kerala hindus must stop eating beef. You can’t claim you’re a hindu and eat beef too. Mother nature will payback with interest.” Further, JN Kaushik @JaganNKaushik replying to @sethia_b @SKMittal63 re-tweets, “It seems to be true sir. Lord Ayyappa is angry with the Kerala Govt, as whole country knows that Communist & Congressi Workers had publicly slaughtered an innocent Calf in protest of Beef ban, cooked it publicly & feasted on its cooked beef openly on the road! God wouldn't spare.” There are several others join these people to give communal flavour to the incident. Shouldn’t we call them ‘sick people?” sadly, these such people are highly learned ones. If their logic were to be right, why then the Uttarakhand floods, Latur and Kutch earthquake and other such incidents happened?
Of course, we do know that human beings are responsible to a certain extent for nature’s fury. Untimely monsoons, drought, and at times floods in certain regions are gifts of human greed, faulty developmental project implementations, encroachment, overpopulation, undisciplined lifestyle, overuse of natural resources, etc. By its very nature, water should flow. Dams are never been a natural phenomenon. But, a civilized society needs certain artificial establishments. When the things go artificial, side effects are bound to appear. If the towns and rivers are maintained well, certain disasters can be averted. In many places, hills are disrobed for constructions, river beds are encroached to build houses, the natural flow of water is diverted to suit human habitation. But, certain incidents are ‘kākatālīya’, it just happens for which we have no control. It is neither a wrath of God nor a curse from any divine establishment. Calling it a ‘divine retribution’ is irrational and an utter nonsense.
The Angst
Many affected people are angry at the way to rescue operations are being held. Some are angry at the government, at the NGOs and with people involved in the rescue. This angst, in fact, is obvious from the trauma one is confronted with. It is not possible to reach out to everyone and everywhere when the calamity of such frequency affects the country. There is a limitation for human reach. But they should not worry. Everyone is trying their best in spite of all the odds, whatever the means possible for a better living.
The co-operation of the people of Kerala in every aspect of the rescue operation is commendable. Twitter handle of President of India thus reads, “#PresidentKovind spoke to the Governor and the Chief Minister of Kerala and inquired about the flood situation. He acknowledged the grit and resilience of the people of Kerala in coming together in this trying hour. Assured the people of the state that the entire nation was with them.” Had such deluge were to take place in any other parts of North India causalities would have been ten times greater than Kerala. People of Kerala are co-operative and understanding. Rajiv Tyagi, the former fighter pilot at Indian Air Force, who was at the forefront of rescue and relief operations at Kochi commends the co-operation in his Facebook page. To quote him, “I have been in the centre of activities at Kochi. While there is no doubt the armed forces have been doing a tremendous job and it has to be acknowledged, I would like to bring out the differences I felt in this mission and the ones carried out at Srinagar, Chennai, Uttaranchal and Mumbai. Firstly to the credit of the civil administration, they have also been in the front and have been operating along with the public. Unlike other places where they had hid themselves and were unwilling to show themselves to the public, here they were shoulder to shoulder with all affected people. Secondly, youngsters had on their own taken on the task of organising the efforts. IT companies had given their people off, to work on relief and rescue. These ppl [people] had all sorts of software programmes created, to coordinate the efforts. The place where they were coordinating the efforts were teaming with the youngsters who were bringing in supplies and other essentials as needed. From my flat complex, young ladies had overnight collected over Rs 3 lakhs and were supplying packed food. Thirdly, the fishermen community had on their own transported their boats and were rescuing the stranded. Similarly, others also had formed their own little organisations to rescue the stranded. The population in general did not wait idly for the govt. machinery to begin the actions as in other places. I find tremendous happiness having seen all the groups work together without any sense of religion or caste or other divisions. I had gone to a church with rations and they directed us to a temple as there were more people there. I am sure with such an attitude, in spite of our politicians and what a number of us say, this country has a good future.” That’s why Kerala is ‘God’s own country.’There are several people including the opposition parties expressing their anger against the meagre amount sanctioned (600 crores till today) by the central government as compared to the amount spent on other unnecessary things. However, there are several people and states pouring in their help in whatever way possible. Hope, more help will be sanctioned by the central government in the future.
What Kerala needs today is our helping hand in rebuilding their lives. Many have lost their land, agriculture, livestock, house, property, transport facilities, etc. They have lost their valuable documents. Many have to begin their life from zero. The future is fearsome. But with your and my help, our little sacrifices, our acts of generosity and good will surely will boost their confidence. May we become good Samaritans in the way we can.
"God loves the cheerful giver."
Fr. Raju Felix Crasta
