I wanted to update the 'status'
on Facebook regarding recent floods in Uttarakhand however somehow managed to
strung together some lines based on the incidents I read and watched in media
over past few days, some accounts from the people who were 'saved' from
the disaster. The floods were as worst as they could get and destructed
everything in its way. Literally everything.
Except God. Miraculously, the lone survivor in Kedarnath was the statue from
the temple.
Natural calamities. Just two
words. Nonetheless depict, despite giant technological advancements, human
being needs to take a bow when confronted with the Nature. Calamities impact at
different levels - mainly physical and mental. At physical level, it directly
affects the unfortunate people trapped in Nature's fury. While the physical
scars can heal over time, the mental scars often cut quite deeply. The pain of irreversibly
losing the beloved ones, pain of washing out all the assets that were earned
after years of struggle, seeing the
extreme shades of human nature.
Which leads to the question: how
the same mishap brings out the best as well as the worst of virtues of a human
being? How the calamity invokes extreme and polar reactions out of human? Probability, this was the single thought which made me write this post.
On one side, there are various government
agencies like Indian Air Force, Army have been involved in rescue operations –
no amount of words are worthy enough to appreciate the work they have done, and
in fact it would be insulting to try to capture the essence of efforts in
words. In particular photo, the army
people were standing at a point, (where, even a drunkard wouldn’t dare to stand
after gulping down 100 beers) holding a rope so that people can walk safely from
one side. There are medical teams. There are people volunteering in creating and
updating the list of missing people and circulating it online from time to
time.
On the other side, there are ministers
doing rounds of aerial surveys, trying to take political mileage out of the
tragedy. There was one particular journalist reporting from water while sitting
on the shoulder of flood victim. So much for the call of the duty, Sir! Based on
the first accounts, some people were selling a packet of biscuit for 1000 bucks,
water bottle 200 bucks. Also people were taking out ornaments, clothes from dead
bodies.
Journalist on the shoulders of flood victim
How much
mentally retarded should be someone to think of anything more valuable than
human life, in the times of calamity? Selling a biscuit packet to the needy for
1000 rupees? Really? Fighting for taking
credit for saving lives. This is really
the nadir of humanity.
Of course, who didn't experience the tragedy can’t feel the same
intensity of pain. However, can we at least attempt to respect the graveness of the
situation?
As the legend goes, when Lord Shiva gets angry, he opens his third-eye, leading to catastrophe. These are kinds of days, we
should be thankful that Lord Shiva doesn't have the fourth eye.