The Hindu Business Line : Their actions spoke louder...

The volunteers came from places as far away as Bhuj and Chattisgarh. They set up community kitchens and helped clean the tsunami-affected Sirkazhi town, 65 km from Nagapattinam. Language was no barrier.

Long after the towering waves reared up from the sea without any warning, and snatched thousands of lives and millions of livelihoods, governments, NGOs and ordinary men and women are working ceaselessly to put survivors back on their feet.

In Tamil Nadu, people like Subhashini Sridhar, Shanthi Krishnan, Shanta Narayan and Bhuvan Pathak, and organisations like Samanvaya, Kuvempu Trust, Gandhi Studies Centre and CIOSA (Confederation of Indian Organisations for Service and Advocacy) have pooled their talent and resources to bring relief to approximately 400 tsunami-affected families.

"Many of us first met each other in the aftermath of the Bhuj earthquake," says Shanthi. Drawn together by their common inclination to help disaster-affected people, this motley group has stayed in touch — and worked together for other causes in the intervening years — though they are scattered in different parts of India and the world. When the tsunami struck, they rallied their forces once again.

Subhashini was on the spot in one of the badly hit areas — Sirkazhi, about 65 km from Nagapattinam. She heads the Sirkazhi unit of the Centre for Indian Knowledge Studies (CIKS), and quickly assessed the situation and prepared an immediate plan of action. She also set up a community kitchen.

In Chennai, Shanthi — who has a degree in public relations and has been interested in social work since the age of 10 — collected funds and essentials for victims living close to the beach near her home. Then, in coordination with the others and within 90 minutes of receiving a request, she dispatched the first lot of essential items to Sirkazhi.

She is now in charge of resource management for the recently formulated group, the Tamil Nadu Tsunami Relief Initiative (TNTRI). This group includes a paediatrician, an auditor, the wife of a school principal, and several NGO workers. TNTRI has been active in badly hit areas like Thirumullaivoyil, Pudhupattinam and Chavadikuppam.

Shanthi has been collecting and dispatching schoolbags, utensils, food provisions, stoves and such. When she was arranging for 250 schoolbags, a showroom owner in Chennai added 50 bags free of cost.

Meanwhile, responding to the distress call, a team of 35 experienced volunteers, mostly women, arrived in Sirkazhi from Raipur (Chhattisgarh) and Bhuj (Gujarat). Despite the language barrier, their relief work wasn't hampered. Under the able supervision of Bhuvan Pathak of the Uttaranchal-based Society for Integrated Development of Himalayas (SIDH), who knows no Tamil and little English, they set about motivatingvictims to clean up their villages and prepare them for re-occupation.

"Although he knows no Tamil, Pathak communicates easily with children," says Shanthi. He got the children to help in the cleaning, but found it harderwith the adults, who were dazed and unable to bring themselves to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives. The women refused to help in the community kitchen, preferring to sit and brood in the early days, says Shanthi. It was the children who convinced the elders to snap out of their dark mood, and participate in the work. And what marvellous therapy work has proved to be!

The 400-odd families TNTRI has taken under its wing are almost back to normal, says Shanthi. Most have lost at least one family member. All have lost their livelihood. A family that lost its children has taken in an eight-year-old orphaned child. The close-knit fishermen's community refuses to give up the boy for adoption, saying it will care for him as one of its own.

Meanwhile, Subhashiniis ensuring that things move like clockwork. She has acquired a three-acre plot in Pudhupattinam, and temporary shelters for the victims are coming up here. Subhashini and Pathak have worked out a plan to build these shelters with locally available material at a cost of Rs 2,500 each. This is much lower than the government estimate of Rs 6,000 and above. While the men are engaged in reconstruction, the women are busy in community kitchens.

In the weeks to come, TNTRI intends to use its resources to procure boats and nets for the fisherfolk, and to build permanent homes for them — this time out of bricks and mortar — that can resist the might of the sea.

As for the children, since fishing is an art that has to be learnt young, the fisherfolk in general don't see much value in schooling. But TNTRI is mulling a different approach to education — from a livelihood angle, perhaps — so that the children can pursue their traditional craft and use it to better their lifestyle in the future.

TNTRI is aware that the people's psychological needs require attention. Although physical activity has succeeded to some extent in diverting their thoughts, the women, men and children however continue to be traumatised and gripped by fear. As a first step, TNTRI plans to get priests — Hindu, Christian or Muslim, as appropriate to the community — to perform a ceremony to dispel the lingering aura of menace and tragedy, and to make way for peace and normalcy.

TNTRI has networked with about 15 grassroots agencies engaged in relief work in Tiruvarur, Sirkazhi and Cuddalore, including the Bharati Women Development Centre, Nagapattinam.

"The response to our requests for help, from home and abroad, in cash and kind, has been overwhelming," says Shanthi. "It has prompted us to think of forming a Trust."

But that's for the future. For now, the work must go on — to relieve the agony of thousandswhose futures were washed away by the sea on that unforgettable December morning in 2004.

Women's Feature Service

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