Bonding over flood havoc

On August 15, 2018, when India was celebrating her 72nd anniversary of independence, the people of Kerala were experiencing a new kind of bondage. Surrounded on all sides by water, they were caught unawares in one of the worst floods in history.

Trapped in their own houses, people were being driven to upper floors by the advancing waters and thereafter found themselves marooned in the very places they had considered their safe haven, as staircases were submerged.

They would have all perished but for the timely action of our combined Forces and voluntary rescue teams.

Whole families with little children were left without food and were surviving on biscuits and whatever available, for days, till rescue arrived.

There was no electricity, no mobile charge, no internet, nothing but still people survived despite all such activities coming to a standstill.

While the living, like pregnant women, the elderly, the women and children were rescued to safety on rafts, boats and big round utensils, the dead also needed boats to be brought to the places of burial, pronto because mortuaries were non-functional.

Luckily the dead died of natural causes because the casualty toll was minimal.

Schools, churches, public places and houses that were on higher ground were turned into camps where the rich, the poor, the mighty, the famous, all rubbed shoulders with each other and ate the same food. Rice gruel with one accompanying dish, tasted more exotic than the best caviars of the Russian seas.

Water came into houses up to one floor or even to the top floors, where elderly women and little children were plucked off from balconies by rescue workers.

Everything that came in contact with the surging waters was destroyed beyond repair. Passports, land documents, ration cards, degree certificates were all washed away or thickly coated with a sticky, slimy deposit of fine clay, which was the case with houses too, that took days and months to clean.

Now almost a year since the all- devouring deluge has passed, the people of Kerala, resilient as they are have bounced back to their normal selves but 'once bitten twice shy', they now shudder at the sight of dark clouds in the sky, as the spectre of a repeat looms large in their psyche.

The plus points of the deluge were that the rich-poor divides were erased. With the collapse of boundary walls, those who previously sat in their ivory towers could now see how their poor neighbours were faring.

Gates were left open. There was a common concern, a oneness and a kindred spirit among people of particular regions as they were all in it together.

A general atmosphere of bonhomie existed everywhere, until...the elections came and everyone was again divided into LDF, UDF, RSS, BJP, majority religion, minority religion and what have you. It was as if they were back to square one.

Does it always have to take a calamity to bring us together? Why can't we be united even in good times? It is high time we shed our dividing identities and say 'we are first and foremost Indians and we will remain so'?

Meanwhile let us keep our fingers crossed that the monsoons will not trouble us this time or should we, like the adman say, if a deluge has brought out the best in man, let us have more of it? Hope not.