Lessons from Crisis - 2/52

Universe >> Milky Way >> Solar System >> Earth >> Asia >> India >> Kerala.

That's the address for my Home State of Kerala.

This year, on 25th of August, this small state of 14 districts was planning to celebrate the harvest festival of Onam. And as you might have already heard, all such plans were cancelled because of the worst flood to hit this side of the country in over a century.

Having received heavy monsoon rains for over two weeks, 35 of the 42 dams in the state had to be opened, which resulted in flooding of the low lying areas. Kerala is known for receiving heavy downpour during this season, but a three fold increase in rain was too much to handle. We experienced first hand the power of water to bring life to a halt.

A death toll of 375+; over 3 lakh people being evacuated from their homes and being housed in over 5000 relief camps across the state; landslides across the state making many areas inaccessible for relief and rescue; entire homes getting submerged in water, soaking every piece of material possession that family had.

My relatives have had water rise up to the roof level of their house, leaving mud on each and every piece of garment they have. I have colleagues who could do nothing but watch helplessly as water engulfed their newly constructed house. I know people who had their entire stock of wares get waterlogged in a matter of hours.

People were stranded in their own homes for days- with no power supply, no clean water, meagre food supply and no knowledge of what was happening elsewhere. To come back from the haunting memories of that trauma would require herculean efforts.

No one in this part of the world knew of a disaster of such proportions, but if you look at the way the entire state swung into action for rescue and relief, you would have been mislead to believe that they handle these situations on a regular basis.

As the water recedes, leaving in its aftermath tales of grief and misfortune, we as a State are determined to rebuild on the positives.

• Like how social media can be a powerful tool in such events, playing its' part in co-ordinating rescue activities and distribution of relief materials.
• Like people setting aside their differences in ideologies - religious and political - to help each other in this time of need.
• Like the Mr.Shashi Tharoor, Member of Parliament from Thiruvananthapuram District, trying to get help from UN and WHO, in his own individual capacity and on his own expenses.
• Like the credibility shown by the Media houses to nip in the bud many fake news being spread on social media.
• Like the maturity of the Keralities to ignore the mass hatred shown on social media towards Kerala at the time of distress to concentrate on those who needed their help. And I must equally compliment them for making sure that these comments are not forgotten now.

I can show you hundreds of pictures and stories showing the havoc caused in Kerala. Instead I chose to let you see the following pictures, which lets us know that humanity still exists. 

1. Saying Thanks to the REAL SUPERHEROES. The Fishermen community was in full force at the water logged places, taking the lead role in the rescue operations. Their efforts were, and will never be forgotten.

2. Saying THANKS for the Chopper Rescue. With their home becoming an island, people were forced to climb on to the roof to escape the rising water. And they were rescued by the brave sons of the country using Helicopters.

3. Showing the way forward. The calamity has hit the state during festive season. Even though a decision was taken unanimously to not celebrate the same at the usually grand levels, the following picture from a relief camp reminds us how we used to celebrate - together.

4. Every rupee counts. The magnanimity of an eight year old, Ms.Anupriya in donating her entire savings towards the relief fund overshadows the lack of central aid and rejection of foreign aid. And the response from the company is truly amazing.

5. Techies to the rescue. Not every man can tame the sea, but everyone can help those capable to do so. These brilliant minds decided to help their brethren by making these effective power banks to be airdropped at the rescue locations.

***

The JK (pheno)Menon

When I heard that this person bought a Force Gurkha, I thought WHY??

When he pulled the following stunt by crossing a river using that Gurkha, I again thought WHY??

When he saved dozens of lives and helped in distribution of relief materials using the same Gurkha over the last week, I knew WHY.

Reboot - 1/52

As any IT support guy worth his hardware will tell you, if something is inexplicably wrong with the way things are now, just reboot the entire system. More often than not, things will start writing again.

So, yeah. We are trying to restart this conversation again.

***

It has been over a decade since I first blogged. Thankfully, I was blessed with the power of hindsight to delete them. The rest of the wrecks from that era are lodged in the drafts sections, serving as reminders of what not to write.

I will confess. I've had multiple blogs - trying to crave a niche. There was one in which I decided to document my daily life. It didn't click, but I find that it is working for some people now.

Then there's this blog - where I experimented a lot, and found a lot of joy and acknowledgement. I wrote continously, once a week, for over two years. And it was well received. I was evergreen blessed with regular readers.

This challenged me to make every blog interesting for them. And one of the most interesting blogs I wrote was one in which all sentences were questions. I liked having that challenge over the two years.

*Enter stage right - The year 2015.*

*Exit stage left - Time.*

So, in the first quarter of the year 2015, two monumental things happened - I joined the banking sector, and I got married. Now, people will tell you that working in Banks is hard. Others will tell you that getting married is hard. And I had to work through both.

Now, Ammu is a darling. The only problem I had with marriage is that everyone expected me to be this different person overnight. I was (still am to a large extent) this kid in a guy's body. I was inquisitive but withdrawn; playful but respectful; and always strived to keep maturity at an arm's length, because I thought it didn't suit me.

I chose to believe that I handle situations with a particular charm with these characteristics of mine. But, to be a functional member of this society, I had to make compromises over the last three years, and I'm glad to let you know that a sweet spot has been arrived at.

So the two changes that I went through in 2015 heaped on me enough challenges, to make the thought of being creative on this online platform a chore. That's why I consciously chose to withdraw from my blogging spree.

***

Today is the Eighteenth of August, 2018. My Ammu's age is technically being incremented by one today. So, I started off writing this blog as a gift to her. She loves reading what I write and I love to write for her.

But that's when a grander idea hit me. This will be the first part of a 52 part gift that I will give her for next year.

***

Obviously this blog was supposed to be uploaded one week before. But I chose not to do so, as unrelenting rain led to floods throughout Kerala.

When I was in Delhi - Week 6

 "When I was in..." is a danger sign in most conversations. By the time these words roll out you know you are in for a treat. And by treat, I mean a monologue of the ego-pic proportions. Usually associated with people who were in the armed forces, this cliche is currently being used by all and many - including yours truly.

And, as the title suggests, my dialogues are based on the 40 odd months I spent in Delhi. Let's have some samples then.

***

1. When I was in Delhi, I talked to a dog in Hindi.

This happened just a week after joining at the company in Gurgaon. After a day's work, we were all sitting in the auto meant to take us back to our place. And suddenly a dog came sniffing around the auto. Fresh mallu flesh smell was the first for him I guess. He tried to progress into the auto, which was occupied by myself, my friend from Kerala and two others. Seeing this, I waved off the dog saying "Jaa Jaa". This amused my friend. "You were saying 'Po Po' till yesterday. Why Hindi now?". My reply is legendary now - "This is a North Indian dog. He can't understand Malayalam."

2. When I was in Delhi and we served the visitor raw atta and he had to fetch water from the fridge by himself.

The summers in Delhi are notorious for the heat. As the Celsius climbs up, monkey's climb down and enter our flats. And when the three brave bachelors tried to drive him away, the monkey snarled and tried to bite, which drove the said bachelors to their rooms. This gave free access of the house to the monkey, who spent some time eating the atta, which we had brought an year ago. Then, he coolly walked up to the refrigerator, opened it, took a bottle of water, opened the bottle and drank from it. Once he had his fun, he left. We had it all on camera, have lost that since.

3. When I was in Delhi and nobody would take my seat.

This happened on the metro, and was discussed on an earlier blog. Us friends were on our way to Dwaraka for a bite at the Malayali Restaurant there. When a space opened up, I nicked in front of my friend to grab it, and jeered him about the same to make the most of it. A beautiful girl walked in the next stop. As was the wont in that age, I tried to get a second look, but was unable to do so because of my seated position. I kept asking my friends, "Ne irrikyada, njn ninnottae" - "Please sit man. I want to stand". This was repeatedly quoted in Malayalam, in a fairly loud voice. The girl got down at the next stop, and I still haven't got that second look.

The next stop came. As he was getting down, a guy who was watching all this said to my friend "Ninnaku avidae irrikyayirunnu. Avan itreyum chothichathu allae" - "You could have sat there. He was pleading na". MALAYALIs are everywhere.

 

***

At the pace I'm going, I'll soon skip a week. :D ;)

Until next week then.

Words of Wisdom - Week 5

The moment I wrote "hopefully by Sunday" in the last post, I knew it was doomed. It's Thursday today - Friday in another two hours - and it's only now that I'm starting this. And the reason for the delay this time is the words of wisdom I received once from a senior, who's name escapes me now.

What doesn't escape my memory's ken are the following five words of wisdom that were shared with me by some great minds. Let's start with the reason for this week's delay.

1. "Your ability to produce coherent sentences is dependent on your creative juices. And like all juices, this needs time to refill."
I had a meeting to attend this Tuesday. Remembering the above words, I chose not to write the blog over the weekend, as that would have left my creative juices dry for the meeting.

2. "The speed of the fan, the amount of sugar in your tea - all these are prospective problems."
Said with respect to Marriages, by my dear friend Gulf's co-brother.

3. "If you've ten problems now, you know all your problems. You don't know how many, or what problems you're going to have in an year."
When Anoop said this to Vivek four years back in that old room in Delhi, he wouldn't have realised how many lives he was re-routing. When Vivek was torn between choosing to stay at DMRC (this being safe) or going to Germany on a scholarship (this being his dream), these words drove him to his dreams. And one by one, the rest of us took the leap of faith.

4. "Make sure the girl is the last one to send the message in a chat."
I still don't understand the concept or advantage behind this one, but I followed it for the better part of a decade. Thank you Chaithin for that.

5. "You're six foot tall right. Then why do you stoop? Stand straight and walk proud with your head held high."
This advice was given to me when I was returning home from school one day. And the source was some old man painting the wall of a random house.

***

Until next week.

Self appraisal - Week 4

So, we finally arrive at the fourth week of the journey - at least by the standards here. This post was supposed to go up by Sunday night, but it got delayed cos of the fact that I started writing it only today. Silly reason I believe.

So, it's April, and it's the time of the year where everyone looks forward to - cos the INCREMENT is coming. Not for me though. This annual roller coaster I had experienced for three years in the private sector has been replaced by a more continual, sedate stream. Despite this, the process of self appraisal has not been done with.

But I'm not here to disclose my achievements for the past year. I'm trying to tie this post back to the first one in this series which was posted one month back. In that, I had mentioned that to force me to change, I am going to keep track of my reading and writing schedule by means of papers stuck to my front door - so that it can always remind me of my (lack of) progress.

Let's review shall we. In the writing panel, there are after this one, four entries. So it fits the once a week criteria - though last two weeks posts were two days late and last week's post was really written in 2014, and left in the drafts. The only reason why I'm writing this is cos I couldn't find anything coherent in the drafts.

In the reading panel, there are three entries - the last of which is 23rd March. Which means I've not only failed to meet my target of reading every other day, but also failed to read anything over the past three weeks.

In another panel, I had written all the major chores I had to complete as on 20th March - 7 in number. 3 have been completed and one has become obsolete now. So not that good of a showing again.

If you were to read the last three paragraphs, and to rate me, I'm not highly confident of achieving a high rating. But therein lies the issue with our system - terming a period as different shades of good, bad or average with respect to preconceived notions.

As far as I see, my self appraisal would term this period as "significant improvement". While in the four week prior to this, I had read nothing, written nothing and all 7 of those chores were still pending, by starting this habit, I was indeed able to register significant progress.

It depends on the apt choice of the reference. If I had chosen a four week period from my teenage, then I would have fared really bad in reading. If I had chosen a four week period from two years back, I would have had bombed in writing. If I had chosen a four week period from... wait.. I was always this bad with chores.

***

Until next week.

Hopefully Sunday. ;)