Vijay Anand, my collegemate and a dear friend had taken a noble initiative to reach out to the Tsunami victims around his hometown, Karaikal, which was a badly affected region of Pondicherry - Union Territory. We did our little bit to support his efforts to help the needy. Here's a portion of his mail that I recieved after he came back to Chennai:
As per the schedule, I started from Chennai on Thursday evening (11.30 PM) and reached Karaikal the next day morning by 6'o clock. I was joined by my college friend - Satya at Karaikal. I was also in touch with a known person(Shakeel Ashiq) who was helping out people in the relief operation. By 09.30 AM we decided on our action plan: we heard/saw that the victims(in Karaikal) weren't much receptive to old clothes and also that the relief work was in full throttle in this region, thanks to good local administrators. So we decided to travel and take stock of the situation in regions along the shoreline and get them what they want instead of buying things beforehand.
After gulping down couple of glasses of road-side tea, Satya, Bala Senthil's (another college-mate) brother, Shakeel and myself started out in two-wheelers with the clothes collected by friends at Chennai. Upto Tranquebar (Pondicherry-Tamil Nadu border) old clothes were strewn around by the sides of the roads with no one to take them. Schools and marriage halls were full of Tsunami victims who lost their homes.
With some inputs from commoners, we started towards the interior shore villages of Tamil Nadu which come under Poombuhar constituency. On the way, we met some families who took the sarees and blankets we brought along. They told that their main need was blankets (since the winter was severe and having lost their shelters,there's no hiding from it). That was a village by name KEZHAANDIPATTI. Then we visited another village (VELLAVAEDU) which homed around 30 families. We distributed the rest of the clothes there and promised to get back with some amenities. On the way back to town we finalized on buying 50 sets of utensils, blankets and toiletries ( bathing soap, detergents, tooth powder, two packets of biscuts and a comb).
It was around 1'o clock when we came back to town. We bought the required things at good bargain and packaged them neatly. By 4.30 PM, Shakeel brought his Maruti omni and we went back to the villages we had visited to distribute the items. They remembered us as 'people who brought the clothes from Chennai and promised to come back with blankets'. They were very happy and thanked all of us for our efforts to reach them. We disbursed 40 sets to the families there.It was around 8.30 PM when we came back to Karaikal.
Meanwhile, we learnt that there's an area in Karaikal (PATTINACHERY) which did not receive much of govt. aid as there was no loss of life in that village. Since we were left with a decent sum of money (nearly 4.5K) we thought we can get them something. We bought 12 sets kitchenware [utensil, two tumblers and two plates] and 5 Kg of rice for each family. We gave them away along with the remaining 10 sets of blankets - utensils - toiletries. I gave the remaining amount (3.35K) to Shakeel and Bala's brother for continuing the help.....
....I am sure that we did our part, nevertheless the fact that it will take months and even years for the affected people to come back to their normalcy. Let's all pray and do the best for the same.
Though a small contribution towards refief from a great tragedy, it leaves good example of big a change it can bring about in the lives of the benifited and in terms satisfaction to the benifactor...
Talking of faith, it is one 'acquired' aspect of human mind that connects it to the larger entity. Without actually scrutinizing the Faith factor as true or false, if we can analyze its effect on binding people together, we would rather conclude that it better exist. Faith is like a thin rope that runs along a bamboo bridge. If you asked - Can it bear your weight in the absence of the bridge? - the answer is: No. But it gives you a sense of security and brings down your anxiety when you walk over the waving bridge.
