The school reopens tomorrow after the Onam holidays. There was no Onam, however. The historic deluge that washed Kerala mercilessly stole the joy out of Onam. There were no grand celebrations. People were busy returning home from their relief camps, cleaning up their houses and seeking where and how to begin anew. Even now thousands of people are living in relief camps because they have nowhere to go; their houses have been washed away entirely or they are not habitable.
While it has been heartening to see the way the people of Kerala cooperated with one another to bring life back to normalcy, it was extremely painful to watch the way certain sections fished in the troubled waters.
The attitude of Prime Minister Modi and his supporters has alienated the people of Kerala almost entirely from the dominant political narrative. The financial aid given by Modi to the state is a pittance against what is required. Mr Modi rubbed salt into the wound of insult by saying no to countries that extended generous financial assistance. Modi’s sycophants like Arnab Goswami went to the extent of implying that Keralites are a “shameless” lot of people for expecting monetary help from across the country’s borders. A lot of my former students from North India preached to me about the importance of “national pride”. One of them even went to the extent of writing on Facebook that I was on a wrong track for criticising Modi’s policies and it was the duty of my old students to bring me back to the right track.
Modi, Goswami and others of the same brood have been trolled mercilessly by Malayalis. The rating of Goswami’s TV channel was brought down to the lowest possible by the people of Kerala. Modi became a laughing stock in social media posts.
These activities kept the sorrows of the deluge under a veil of staid smiles. There was another group of people, however, who turned contemporary Cassandras. They prophesied doom. The eternal judgment is close at hand, they proclaimed. They brought in evidences from the Bible, mystical visions, Nostradamus, and all possible sources. I could never fathom their minds. Do they really believe what they say? Or do they seek to make people more religious and hence more benign? Does religion make people benign? Isn’t our Prime Minister a very religious person and does his kind of religion make people benign? My holidays gave me ample time to contemplate such things.
The best part was when people spoke and wrote about their own experiences in their own simple ways. Most of them were inspiring in their own simple ways. They accepted their tragedy with equanimity. There was a woman who posted her view on Whatsapp, for example. She said she had to stand in a queue for food wearing a pair of short trousers and a T-shirt, the kind of dress she would never have imagined of wearing. She had been used to wearing stylish dresses with matching ornaments. She said that the tragedy taught her the immateriality of such stylishness. She learnt that she needed so little to live. She learnt some great lessons about life. I loved her for that. She learnt much more than what the religious Cassandras were trying to teach. There were many people like her.
My school reopens tomorrow. I’ll be back with simple people, young minds, who learn the essential lessons of life easily if Cassandras don’t meddle with their minds. I’m happy to be there with them once again after a long gap.
Hello, how can I speak to you personally????
ReplyDeleteWhy do you want it?
Delete"The best part was when people spoke and wrote about their own experiences in their own simple ways"- This has been the plus of the tragedy that people were able to see the oneness inthe many.
ReplyDeleteThe way most people responded to the calamity is indeed inspiring.
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