All wasn’t merry after christmas after all. 😦
But I guess the positive way to look at it is:
THAT since it was the night after christmas, many fishermen din’t venture out into the sea. God saved them!
(But why did He have the others for breakfast?)
THAT it wasn’t New Year’s Eve when the Tsunami struck. Wouldn’t have been happy new year with all those beach parties.
(But since it dint, people are gonna blow thousands on new year celebrations!)
THAT life has its ways of bringing people together in the times of crisis. It’s so heartening to see relief work happen before your eyes, I’m truly touched. I compiled a list of contact numbers today and spent some time attending the co-ordination meeting organised by AID-Bhoomika Trust and half a dozen other NGOs. Must be out in the paper tomorrow, those interested in helping but didn’t know how to, can call any of those 25 contact numbers around the State.
(But do we have the resources and volunteers to cater to 10 lakh affected people and build homes in 2000 villages?)
THAT it’s incidents like these that make you sit up and feel sorry, socially responsible and angry, you wanna do something. It brings a tear to the eye like it did for Madhavan in Anbe Sivam or Shah Rukh Khan in Swades, and makes you want to be a better person.
(But just for a moment or few because most of us are busy and caught in our own world – work, responsibilities, problems. Like Sudhon said somewhere in his comment in an earlier blog, we just see a movie like Swades, feel bad about the state of affairs and then what? Move on with our lives?)
THAT even indifferent people like that do not seem to mind donating one day’s pay to the relief fund. It at least reduces income tax. If five crore people from Tamil Nadu who can afford to see Baba or Virumandi give 100 rupees each, we have Rs.500 crore…
(But we don’t have a mechanism to collect this money from these people. However, there’s gonna be much much more money than that coming in from all around the country and the world through assorted relief funds. The question is: How is it going to trickle down to help the poorest?)
THAT even politicians are working day and night to make realistic assessments of the number of deaths so mobilise huge relief funds from the Centre.
(But then, they also have the con-science to pocket it.)
MADRAS INK. 